Bill Wannan's Folk Medicine By Bill Wannan A Miscellany of Old Cures and Remedies, Superstitions, and Old Wives'

Tales Havi ng Particular Reference to Australia and the British Isles. Contents: + + + + + + + Warning Acknowledgements Prelude Caution: Not to be Swallowed A Personal Preface Aborigines and Folk Medicine A to Z of illnesses and how they were treated with Folk Medicine

---------------------------** Warning ** The Medicines in this book are presented for entertainment (and historical curio sity) only. They should not be taken either seriously or as pertaining in any wa y to proper medical treatment either herbal or orthodox. Some advice within here is foolish (to say the very least) and dangerous. I was thinking of perhaps not including this work but decided to present it here for t he sake of historical curiosity. - Salmun. ---------------------------Acknowledgements So many people have helped me, either orally or by correspondence, in the compil ation of this book that it would tax my available space to mention them individu ally. In making this a general expression of my gratitude and warm appreciation, I do want them to know that only their generosity, and the information, recipes , and old herbals and 'home doctor' manuals that they have sent me, have made th is book possible. Especially am I indebted to those readers of Australasian Port and the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial who have so readily responded to my appeal s for assistance; and, of course, to the editors of those publications also. B.W. ---------------------------Prelude There is a plant in the world for every ailment; all you have to do is find it. Quoted in Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, 1950 The history of folk medicine is the history of medicine: a long drama of trial a nd error and dedication . . . Ibid One of the strongest influences on man is custom. B. A. Botkin, A Treasury of Ne w England Folklore, 1947 Besides mystical faith-faith in intuition-superstition involves the 'willing sus

pension of disbelief that constitutes poetic faith.' Superstition is also poetic in its symbolism, its ability to see a pattern of analogy and sympathy in thing s apparently unrelated. Analogy-the principle that 'like produces like'-is espec ially notable in folk cures, with its doctrines of 'like cures like' and the 'ha ir of the dog that bit you'. Ibid No hope is too preposterous to generate its own supporting evidence. Bergen Evans, The Spoor of Spooks, 1955 ---------------------------Caution: Not to be Swallowed 'Tis his great happiness that he is distempered,' says a character in one of Con greve's plays, 'thereby to have an opportunity of experiencing the efficacy and sweetness of the remedies which you have so judiciously propounded. I approve 'e m all.' I am not, regrettably, in a like position to endorse the cures and remedies (or their ingredients) in the following pages. This is the book of a folklorist, not of a doctor. It seeks to throw some light on a particular field of folk customs and practices, and the superstitions and fallacies which often surround them. A s such, it is a record of historical interest and a miscellany for entertainment -not in any sense a volume of medical assessment, opinion and advice. Should anyone, as a result of reading this book, have an overwhelmingly compulsi ve urge to swallow snail-water for his dropsy, or to feed a portion of cooked mo use to his bed-wetting offspring, I would suggest that he immediately consult hi s doctor instead. And in heaven's name, dear Reader, if you have a bad back don' t go out and shoot a goanna and use its liver oil as liniment, or you'll probabl y have the Wildlife authorities and conservationists on your back as well. And s erve you jolly well right, too! Having said so much, let us proceed-chastened, perhaps, but certainly not dismay ed-to the subject in hand. B.W. ---------------------------A Personal Preface I spent the best part of my boyhood in Bairnsdale and the hilly East Gippsland c ountryside in the decade following the first world war. It was a wonderful place for a child to grow up in, for it had not quite shaken off the vestiges of its pioneering past. I read Huckleberry Finn when I was very young; and I remember f eeling even then that my part of the world wasn't so very different from Huck's. There were two-horse stage coaches still taking prospectors, farmers and commer cial travellers into the remoter corners; a paddle wheeler plied up and down the Mitchell River (certainly not quite a Mississippi) between Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance. Teamsters urged their long trains of bullocks, hauling incredible loa ds of timber, past our house to the Bairnsdale sawmill, down a slope of what is now called Princes Highway. Grey oast-houses rose above the green of the river f lats. Showmen, medical quacks, itinerant preachers, came and went with their gla mour and their mysteries. Legends filled the air. There was the story, terrifyin g to a child's mind, of the white woman who had survived a shipwreck off the Gip psland coast, many years earlier, and who was held captive by the blacks. The se ttlers sought for her through ,the rugged bush land, always believing that they were but a day's journey away from her; and then at last the day came when the b

lacks agreed to deliver her to the white men. A meeting place was arranged. When the parties were assembled the dark people brought out from the bushes-the carv ed figurehead of a woman from some long-dead ship's prow. And there were tales o f the supernatural: of the Haunted Hills where cattle stampeded and no birds san g; of the Hairy Man who waylaid the traveller at night; of the ghosts of Aborigi nes murdered by Angus McMillan's 'Highland Brigade', haunting lonely billabongs and sad marshes. Legend told us that Ned Kelly and the more shadowy highwayman H arry Power had visited Bairnsdale; and stories circulated of dark crimes committ ed on lost gold-diggings in outlying hills and gullies. This was the atmosphere of my early environment. I think that Mark Twain would h ave felt at home in it. Folk memory influenced people's lives more intimately then. Popular wisdom, most ly inherited from settlers who had brought it with them in the first place from the British Isles, Europe, or (more rarely) the United States, and had adapted t o their local needs, was a powerful factor in ordering our lives. There was weat her lore, horse lore, and lore associated with birth, marriage, death and burial . There were all kinds of superstitions about the stars, and mice, the power of dung and the importance of charms. Although we had ready access to doctors, and called on their services in the more serious cases of ailment or injury, familie s in our district, and throughout the whole of the Australian countryside, leane d more heavily on home cures and superstitious beliefs (the notion, for instance , that contact with a frog's skin, or the water in which an egg had been boiled, would bring warts) than would be possible nowadays. Even patent medicines and s tore remedies, although of course fewer in number then, played a greater part in our lives, and brand names were much more like household words, than is the cas e in these days when so much medicine is dispensed by doctor's prescription. I t hink I'm right in saying that there was less confidence in physicians then than now. This was a traditional attitude, handed down from pioneering times, when people were often too poor to pay for a doctor's services or for the transport to reach him. The very scarcity of medical practitioners in frontier times had created p opular fears about their reliability; and frequently .those who were prepared to administer to the needs of bush folk had been of the rough-and-ready kind, like Doc Wild in Henry Lawson's tales. But I think the chief reason for the general avoidance of doctors in country areas, except when circumstances made it imperat ive to rely on their help, was that most folk in the pioneering era had learned to rely on the efficacy of their own home prepared concoctions and cures, aided by the kind of store remedies and patented specifics I've mentioned already. For their guidance there were innumerable herbals, emigrant how-to-do-it publicatio ns, almanacs and 'home doctor' manuals. Some of these books were very old, and w ere as much treasured by those who brought them from the 'home country' as their family Bibles. Others were Australian in origin, and introduced a few recipes b ased on indigenous ingredients like eucalyptus leaves and certain gum exudations . And so for many Australians, down to the period of the 1920s, a physician was generally thought of as being 'a last resort'. It was the local chemist, selling his small quantities of sulphur, glycerine, paregoric, Epsom salts and bicarbon ate of soda-not to forget those valued cure-alls, Friar's Balsam and Perry Davis ' Pain-killer-who was looked upon as the important man of medicine. Recently, I was reminded of the Gippsland of an earlier time by a letter I recei ved from a lady now living in Armadale (V): My grandmother belonged to a pioneer family settled near Warragul. They carved a farm out of the bush, and had no money or transport for medical assistance. If a member of the family sustained a cut, she bound the cleaned wound with ribwort , a plant with long ribbed leaves which grows freely there. She claimed it preve nted infection and hastened healing.

As you may know, Gippsland is notorious for its lack of iodine in the soil and c onsequently goitre is rife. Before the days of iodised tablets my grandmother ma de each of her children inhale iodine in boiling water, with a towel over his he ad. She used to make them do this regularly for a couple of years, if any of the m showed signs of goitre. My grandmother had eight children; and never attended a doctor in her life. I have received hundreds of letters like this from many parts of Australia; and I shall be referring to a number of them in subsequent pages. Their interest lie s not in the reliability of the medical practices which they describe but in the vivid impression they give of the part which folk medicine played in the lives of pioneering people. It seems to me that the gathering and preservation of this old-time lore has bee n too long neglected. Folklorists tend to seek out the more glamorous aspects of their field of study. We now have a vast body of knowledge concerning the songs our forefathers sang and the yarns they told. To them, their physical health wa s perhaps the most important of their primary concerns-yet what do most Australi ans now living know about their methods, sometimes puny, often misguided, almost always courageous, of keeping illnesses at bay? This is surely one of the most important aspects of our cultural history. In these pages I hope to point to som e paths which researchers, better equipped than I am, may wish to follow. There is a passage in the American writer Mary Ellen Chase's book of reminiscenc es, A Goodly Heritage (1932), which suggests parallels with the Australian exper ience. Referring to her mother's habit of dosing her family alternately with 'Ki ckapoo Indian Sagwaw' and a mixture of sulphur and molasses, she says: Whether we received any benefits from either of these tonics beyond, the sense o f family solidarity which they engendered I cannot say. Certain it is that we re ceived no harm. I am sure, too, that my nephews and nieces, who are beset by bab y specialists, carrots, orange juice, and spinach, present no better appearance of health than we did in our day. It is at least a matter of some regret that th ey will never know that family rite, instituted by sulphur and molasses, allevia ted by Kickapoo Indian Sagwaw, and carrying in its long wake such resultant humo ur in reminiscence. It's easy to laugh, of course, at the more preposterous of the old-time cures an d remedies. We all tend to do so; and it is surely right that we should. There's humour to be found in the quaintness of some specifics, handed down through man y generations, and in the nonsense of others born of the astonishing unreason of superstititious minds. Nevertheless, before we become too complacent let us ask if we have really freed ourselves from the influence of many of those old wives ' tales of medicine that we find so amusing. Writing almost a century ago in England, the Rev. Thiselton Dyer, an antiquarian scholar whose work I shall have occasion to refer to quite frequently in this b ook, could say of his contemporaries: 'Indeed, thousands of our population place far greater faith in their domestic treatment of disease than in the skill of m edical science . . . Hence, however 'eccentric the remedy may be, we occasionall y find not only the ignorant but even educated classes scrupulously obeying the directions enjoined on them, although these are often by no means easy of accomp lishment . . . Indeed, those who believe in the prevention and cure of disease b y supernatural means are far more numerous than one would imagine, having their representatives even among the higher classes. However much we may ridicule the superstitious notions of our rural peasantry, or speak with compassion of the Af rican Negro who carries about him some amulet as a preservative against disease or as a safeguard against any danger that may befall him, yet we must admit that there is in England also a disposition to retain, with more or less veneration,

those old-world notions which in the time of our forefathers constituted, as it were, so many articles of faith.' Are we, in the 1970s, so very different? Bill Wannan ---------------------------Aborigines and Folk Medicine The attitude of white settlers to the Aborigines was an ambivalent one, marked b y fear of their supposed extra-human powers and contempt for their alleged menta l inferiority. As Professor W. E. H. Stanner has pointed out in one of his 1968 Boyer lectures, 'our folklore about the Aborigines shows the qualities which dis tinguish it everywhere, a splendid credulity towards the unlikely and an iron re solve to believe the improbable. It mixes truth, half-truth and untruth into har d little concretions of faith that defy dissolution by better knowledge.' Thus, as Dr Stanner asserts, the European confusion led to such beliefs about the dark people as that they were 'masters of mental telepathy or, alternatively, had no minds at all; their morals were deplorable or, alternatively, superior to ours; they sent complex messages by smoke signal but had no true language, only a kin d of bird talk; they did not suffer pain as we do,' and so on. Because of their ignorance, fear and suspicion-allied, of course, to the fact that they coveted t he native tribal-grounds-the settlers learned much less from the Aborigines abou t the Australian environment than they might profitably have done; and the day e ventually came when there were no knowledgeable blacks around to teach them. This is the theme of the following extract from one of Mary Gilmore's fine essay s, having a direct bearing on folk medicine of the frontier years. Contrasted wi th this is W. A. Horn's end-of-the-century picture of Aborigines, detribalised a nd possessing little of their former confidence, relying on the white man's 'piz zic'. Frontier Talk [Mary Gilmore, in the following passage, was describing the life of pioneering f olk in the Goulburn district of New South Wales, during the period of her childh ood there in the late 1860s and early 1870s.] Much talk symptomatic of its period used to go on, when, sitting on a friendly s tockman's knee, I would hear it told with wonder and astonishment that snake-bit e did not affect the blacks, and startling instances would be given of how a nat ive had put his hand into some hole, and, bitten, he made no fuss. All he did wa s to cause the place to bleed and then wash it well. (Obviously this was done wh en the bite came from a carpet or other non-venomous snake.) Others would tell o f times when, without any ado, a bite was sucked by a lubra, bite and sucking al ike being looked upon as nothing. 'There must be something in the blacks' saliva!' someone would suppose. And then (which shows how far minds have travelled since then), it would be deba ted whether woman's saliva might not be different from man's because woman was m ade from a rib, while man was made from clay. But father coming up would give th e black man's information (new then ' to the white) that snake-poison acted thro ugh the blood and not through the stomach, and that the natives had told him tha t provided there was no broken skin in the mouth there was no more danger in suc king snake-bite than in sucking out a splinter. Fright killed, the blacks said, and it killed because the rapid heart-beat spread the poison from the spot where it lay ' injected. But the poison had to be got out of the puncture made by a v

enomous snake at once, for if it spread it could not be drawn back. 'I sucked the place for hours,' said a woman of her child, 'but it was too late. I could not get all the poison out.' Her tongue and her lips were stiff and swollen with the force and pressure she h ad put on them. She had a ravaged look, but her child had not; it lay in its lit tle bed at peace, and my father made its coffin of a gin-case. When I saw Warri bitten he held his hand out at a fairly high level in front of him, he made no hasty movement, but with even step and un-startled body, came ac ross to the lubras with whom I was standing. An elder woman examined the wound a nd drew the poison, and all she did was spit out after doing it. Then she return ed to her basket-weaving. Neither man nor woman made any more of it than if it h ad been the prick of a thorn or the pulling out of a splinter. Yet the bite was made by a black snake. ' It had run into a hollow log, and Warri, thinking to ca tch it by the tail, had put in his hand. But the reptile had gone far up, had tu rned, and was watching him. After the bite had been attended to, the black poked his quarry with a stick, and drawing it out, caught it by the tail as it made o ff. Cracking it like a whip he broke its back; then he killed it by pulling off its head in a cleft of the log. After that he brought it, still holding it by th e tail, and laid it by the ashes for the women to roast. The impression in my mi nd, though I had not the words then, was how majestically and with what unhurrie d dignity he walked. He was a tall man, over six feet in height, with broad shou lders, a deep chest, and a full-browed, massive head. It was from him and his people that we learned which snake was venomous and whic h not; which was only one thing of many that we had to learn, or else suffer. So when I hear people talk of the unintelligent black I feel with what self-satisf ied egotism the white forgets the uncounted ways in which he and his were uninte lligent (and still would be unintelligent) but for what the blacks taught. As pa rallels to the treatment of snake-bite by sucking, take the use of eucalyptus, t he application of weak wattle tanwater for burns and blisters, of clean mud as p oultices, of native gums in dysentery, the eucalyptus beds and steam pits for co lds and rheumatism, and ask was it a white or black intelligence which was first to find and apply these. For other remedies, were one low after a fever or othe r illness, we were told of a little pink flower that grew in the grass, and whic h father found to be a centaury. The natives chewed it when fresh, and, along wi th other herbs that I have forgotten, they carried it in bundles against times w hen it could no longer be picked. New settlers learning of it hung it from a beam in the roof to dry, so that it c ould be decocted for use as required. Besides being a medicine, it made a slight ly tonic beer. Men travelling in the bush would hoard a few dry stems of centaur y in case of dysentery. It did not cure, but it did help them to resist and surv ive. Another of the native herbs was a tiny sweet-scented camomile. We called it by the old European names, fever-feu and feather-few. There was another thing w e called stink-weed, but which a man who knew plants told us was asafoetida. He was an old shepherd, but had been a college man, had failed in examinations and come to Australia. In the bush he had learned from the natives the value of herb s used by them. He asked us (we were just children) to look for the plant for hi m, gave us a smell of some dried leaf he had, and described what it looked like when growing. If odour meant asafoetida then asafoetida it was. He said it was a n invaluable remedy. In the then almost unknown bush, leaves and leaf-dust were carried in children's socks and old white stockings; and if a man lost a calico bag, a foot long, by six or eight inches wide, he nearly wept, for he had nothin g in which to put his tea or sugar, his fragments of tobacco, or his rubbed-up b ush leaves. There was no waste paper blowing about then, for world exportation a nd manufacture were in their infancy; calico cost a shilling or more a yard, and a labourer got from seven and six to ten shillings a week as wage. Most shepher

ds only got 6 or 10 a year. If kangaroo and possum meat had not been at every man' s hand for the killing, people could not have lived. * * *

In spite of imported remedies the fact remains that but for the aboriginals' kno wledge of plant, poison, remedy, and wound, and also their friendly ways, our fi rst settlers would have had to migrate in groups and settle in companies as had to be done in the United States in its early colonization. Instead, we had a lan d so safe, and a native people so friendly, that we could go out, one man alone, one family alone, and either could live without a single neighbour of their own colour being at hand. But in spite of safety, many would have died, wanting the knowledge the blacks offered. Mary Gilmore, More Recollections, 1935 Seidlitz Powders in South Australia [Seidlitz powders, as Stephen Henry Roberts pointed out in his The Squatting Age in Australia, were among the chief items in the bushman's medicine chest as far back as the 1830s.] They [the Aborigines] are great believers in the powers of a white man's medicin e and a station owner always has to keep a chest of simple medicines. I usually gave them a little tobacco at the same time; they are great smokers when they ca n get tobacco. There was one old woman to whom my medicines never seemed to do a ny good. She was always wanting 'pizzic' as she called it. My medicine chest was rather bare but I had some seidlitz powders. My medicine glass was not large en ough to hold the powders in a state of effervescence. So I gave her the content s of the blue paper first, and then followed with the contents of the white, bot h in warm water. Now I have read of the marvellous effects of Pink pills, Mother Seigel's Syrup and Owbridge's Lung Tonic, etc., but none of these things were i n it with that seidlitz powder. When the constituent parts collided, there came into her face a far-away, wondering, frightened look, as of one who feels an ear thquake. Her eyes dilated, she gave one terrific howl, ran a little distance, an d then lay down and tried to die, under the impression that she was poisoned. Th en she jumped up and ran towards the blacks' camp, wailing out - 'Massa been giv e em pizen, me bin eat em pizen.' The other blacks came and beat her gently with green boughs which is their antidote for poison. My diagnosis of the case prove d absolutely correct. She used to come sometimes and ask for tobacco, but if I e ver suggested that she required physic, that same far-away look came into her fa ce, and she always protested-'No more me want em pizzic, me big fellow all right now.' The memory of it used to make me laugh so that I often gave her an extra allowance of tobacco. W. A. Horn, Bush Echoes, 1901. ---------------------------A to Z of illnesses and how they were treated with Folk Medicine ---Abscesses I like that old English word 'imposture'. It has so much more indignation to it than its equivalents, 'abscess' and 'boil'. To Ripen or Break an Imposture [Boil or Abscess] (Old English) Take a good quantity of snails and the Ground Salt and boyle them together and l ay it on the place. Robt. Bulkeley His Book, 1641, quoted in Dorothy Jacob, Cure

s and Curses, 1967. [Insert pic p005] For an Abscess in the Face Procure from the chemist 3 or 4 poppy-heads, boil them, and place in a basin; ho ld the face over the steam. They may be re-heated, and used several times. Mrs T heo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Accidents in the Bush The Doctor took a Week to Arrive The doctor was in our district before my arrival at the station [in central Vict oria], having been appointed by the government as medical attendant for the abor iginal station, but he supplemented his income by the private practice of a dist rict of about twenty five miles radius, his central residence being at the stati on of Mr A. MacCallum of Dunach Forest. Shortly after we came an arrangement was made with the squatters within his rounds for his services when required by the payment of an annual sum, according to their means and the size of their famili es, and by the station hands for each attendance. His assured income was made up in this way to about 500 a year, which, as he was a bachelor and was at no expen se for living, was considered by him as quite satisfactory. It happened, however, that from the size of his district, it was nearly a week a fter he was urgently summoned before he could reach the patient. I myself was su ffering severely at one time from a most excruciating, deep-seated whitlow on on e of my fingers, and had to suffer from it for a week before he could attend me; but just before his arrival relief was afforded me by a friendly chemist, a vis itor for the night, who lanced the finger for me; but a joint was lost through t he delay. On another occasion I was thrown from my horse about two miles from ho me and dislocated an elbow and both wrists and sprained an ankle. In this state I crawled home, where I lay for three days before the doctor could reach me, but the dislocations were reduced in a few minutes when he did come; but all cases were not of so urgent or painful a character as these.* Alfred Joyce, A Homestea d History, 1942 *The period referred to is the mid-1840s. Ed. Hazards of Bush Life (The following extract refers to conditions of living in outback areas of Austra lia in the turn-of-the-century period.) The bushman's grit and endurance under trying conditions are proverbial. We ofte n hear of men and boys who, after being thrown, crawl after their horses with a broken leg, drag themselves into the saddle, and ride many miles home. Men, too, bind up their own broken limbs between bits of rough wood, and, using a forked stick for crutch, cover long journeys without food or water. I remember a teamst er who fell under his wagon, and the wheels passing over him, crushed a leg, arm , shoulder, and several ribs. He instructed his mate to lash the injured leg to the sound one, and to tie the arm to his side. Then he said, 'Put me in the cart , and I'll ride as right as pie.' There was no hope for him from the start, but he was cheerful and game to the end. In towns people get accustomed to depend on the ambulance and the hospital, and to look to the doctor being in attendance i n five minutes. In the bush a man learns to depend on his own resources, and bei ng seldom within reach of a doctor, he never looks for one except when his bones

are broken, or when his home remedies have failed in other cases. Mere flesh wo unds to him are nothing to trouble about; his only concern is to stop the bleedi ng. He never knows when he goes out alone into the bush what he may be called up on to endure before he gets back. The boundary-rider jogging along his fences, t he shepherd, the stockman, the prospector, and the scrub-cutter, when unaccompan ied by a mate, have always before them the risk of a lingering death. Edward S. Sorenson, Life in the Australian Backblocks, 1911 A Hero of the Backblocks [The following yarn was told to me by Mr R. W. Logan, of Yundamindra Station in the Leonora district of Western Australia.] Old Charlie was about fifty miles from the station homestead, mustering straggle r bullocks, when his horse took a bad fall, throwing Charlie heavily to the grou nd. When he regained consciousness he found he'd broken his right leg. He lay there for a few minutes contemplating his situation and then decided he'd better atten d to his horse. Crawling on hands and one knee he eventually reached the horse, only to find that it had broken a leg also. Much as he hated doing it, Charlie d rew his rifle from its pouch and shot the faithful animal. As night was closing in he thought it best to stay alongside the dead horse and wait until morning. On waking at daylight, Charlie was horrified to see that the dingoes had been in and eaten all the flesh from the horse. But it gave old Cha rlie an idea. The ribs of the horse would make good splints, he thought, so he b roke off a couple of ribs, found a piece of rope, and splinted his leg. Charlie reached the homestead, and collapsed. He gained consciousness a few days later. A doctor was bending over him. After he'd had a smoke, Charlie said, 'What d'ya think of the job I did on me le g, Doc?' 'Not bad,' replied the medico, 'not bad at all. Only one thing wrong, Charlie.' 'And what was that?' 'You splinted the wrong leg.' Quoted in Bill Wannan, 'Come in Spinner', Australa sian Port, July 27, 1961 ---Ague What is ague? The term seems to have been used throughout English history in the sense of any fever accompanied by shivering. Pepys, in 1661, mentions a visit t o Sir R. Slingsby, 'who is fallen sick of this new disease, an ague and fever'-t he 'new disease' in this instance being probably a type of influenza. Later gene rations have used the term to denote, among other fevers, the malarial variety. To Cure an Ague (Old English Recipe) Take tobacco-dust and soot, an equal quantity, and nine cloves of garlick; beat it well together, and mix it with soap into a pretty stiff paste, and make two c akes something broader than a five shilling-piece, and some- a thing thicker; la y it on the inside of each wrist, and bind it on with rags; 'put it on an hour b efore the fit is expected: if it does not do the first time, in three or four da ys repeat it with fresh. E. Smith, The Compleat House-wife, 1753

Old English Ague Charms No complaint, perhaps, has offered more opportunities for the employment of char ms than this one, owing in a great measure to an old superstition that it is not amenable to medical treatment. Thus, innumerable remedies have been suggested f or its cure, many of which embody the strangest superstitious fancies. According to a popular notion, fright is a good cure, and by way of illustration we may q uote the case of a gentleman, afflicted by this disease in an aggravated form, w ho entertained a great fear of rats. On one occasion he was accidently confined in a room with one of these unwelcome visitors, and the intruder jumped upon him . The intensity of his alarm is said to have driven out the ague, and to have co mpletely cured him . . . . A Sussex remedy prescribes 'seven sage leaves to be e aten by the patient fasting seven mornings running'; and in Suffolk the patient is advised to take a handful of salt, and to bury it in the ground, the idea bei ng that as the salt dissolves so he will lose his ague. A Devonshire piece of fo lk-lore tells us that a person suffering from ague may easily give it to his nei ghbour by burying under his threshold a bag containing the parings of a dead man 's nails, and some of the hairs of his head. Some people wear a leaf of tansy in their shoes, and others consider pills made of a spider's web equally efficacio us, one pill being taken before breakfast for three successive mornings. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folklore, c. 1881 Dr Hall's Plaister for an Ague (Old English) Take a pennyworth of black soap, one pennyworth of gunpowder, one ounce of tobac co-snuff, and a glass of brandy; mix these in a mortar very well together; sprea d plaisters on leather for the wrists, and lay them on an hour before you expect the fit. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Another Plaister for the Same Take Venice turpentine, and mix with it the powder of white hellebore-roots, til l it is stiff enough to spread on leather. It must be laid all over the wrist, a nd over the ball of the thumb, six hours before the fit comes. Ibid Yet another Cure for the Same Take small packthread, as much as will go five times about the neck, wrists, and ancles; dip them in oil of amber twice a day for nine days together; keep them on a fortnight after the ague is gone. Ibid ---Apples An Apple a Day ... An apple a day keeps the doctor away and an onion a day keeps everyone away. (Anonymous) Eat an apple going to bed, Make the doctor beg his bread. (An old folk-rhyme of Devon) An apple a day Keeps the doctor afar; But an orange a day Is better by far. (Anonymous 20th century rhyme) A Poultice for a Sty

Get a bad apple and cut the bad part out and put it in a muslin, and put it on t he sty and leave all night. It is generally broken by the morning. 'Lavender'. Q uoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 ---Asthma The sufferer from asthma may not draw much comfort from the following recipes. B ut then, the purpose of this book is not to offer solace to the afflicted. Folk remedies, in any case, are not always as silly as they may sometimes seem. The Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore observes, 'One good old fo lk cure for asthma is to swallow a handful of spider webs rolled into a ball. Th is is not as far-fetched as it may sound ... in 1882 a substance called arachnid in was isolated from spider webs which proved to be a remarkable febrifuge.' A Remedy for Asthma (Inveterate) For difficulty in breathing, or asthma, live chiefly on boiled carrots or leeks for a month; or, drink a pint of new milk morning and evening. This has cured in veterate asthma. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. (19th century) The 'Queensland Asthma Plant' A liquid extract from the native euphorbia, a dwarf plant with white flowers, wa s used by our pioneers in many a case of asthma and similar disorders. As a matt er of fact, euphorbia has become widely known as the 'Queensland asthma plant'. B.C. of Mackay (Q), in a letter to the Editor Asthma and Australians Asthma, a very common complaint among us, is noticeable for its strange behaviou r under different circumstances. If it develops in a person living inland, nothi ng but a change to the sea air seems to give permanent relief. If those, however , who live on the coast are attacked, they are obliged to seek a dry climate and cannot stay near the sea at all. Edward Kinglake, The Australian at Home, 1891 A Recipe for the Relief of Asthma To relieve asthma, make a pad of five layers of strong unbleached calico, wring out of cold water, and place it on the sufferer's chest; keep it wet. This has b een known to cure very obstinate cases. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] H ousehold Manual, c. 1899 For Asthma Sufferers Mince garlic, and spread on thin bread and butter, and eat just before ' going t o bed. This has to be persevered with, but the result is wonderful. 'Wink'. Quot ed in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 ---Barcoo Rot There are a few illnesses which have acquired Australian names. Perhaps the best known of these is Barcoo rot (after a river area in western Queensland), also s ometimes referred to as 'Queensland sore' and 'Kennedy rot'. It is a type of scu rvy, which Sidney J. Baker described in his The Australian Language as 'a fester

ing sore difficult to cure under inland conditions it rapidly disappeared when t he sufferer ate plenty of fruit or green vegetables.' M.J. ('Mulga Mick') O'Reilly wrote in 'Bowyangs and Boomerangs' that the disease was prevalent in Western Australia during the gold rushes of the 1890s: 'beer o r fresh vegetables was the only cure'. Barcoo Rot at Kalgoorlie in the 1890s By continually living on preserved food with a lack of vegetables, the [Western Australian] miners' health began to suffer, and a great number of them suffered from barcoo rot. The skin of the hands and arms became brittle and tender and th e slightest scratch soon became a dry hard sore which refused to heal. All kinds of patent medicines were tried. Doctors were consulted; but nothing th ey prescribed gave relief. Some of the old hands used hops instead of tea, and s eemed to get a little relief; but the best cure I found was a drink taken three times a day, made by soaking that common old weed, Hoarhound, in boiling water. As the plant did not grow on the goldfields it had to be imported, and the chemi sts made a pile by selling it at sixpence per ounce. As time went on the disease, like the fever, gradually disappeared, and in a few years was unknown. Albert Gaston, Coolgardie Gold, 1937 ---Bed Wetting I was interested to learn recently from a well-known Melbourne sportsman and for mer Olympics athlete, who grew up in a rural district of Victoria at about the t urn of the century, that during his childhood it was a common practice of some n eighbouring families to serve their bed-wetting children a portion of boiled mou se-flesh as a preventative measure. Now this method of dealing with what we would nowadays regard largely as a psych ological problem has a venerable lineage. It goes back to antiquity; and in Engl and, from where the tradition was brought to Australia, mice were long considere d to have strong curative properties when taken internally. Fried mice, preferab ly cooked alive, were a common remedy for small-pox from early times; and the 18 th century housewife kept a quantity of cooked mouse ready for many medicinal em ergencies: fits, fevers, coughs, sore throats, warts. Bed-wetting was high on th e list. Indeed, mice had magical powers, for a time-honoured custom in England, repeated in parts of colonial Australia, was for the infant's first milk tooth to be dro pped into a mouse-hole, thus ensuring the little person's freedom from toothache . ---Belyando Spew Belyando spew, named after a shearing district of western Queensland, was 'a sic kness characterized by vomiting after food was taken, especially suffered by she arers because of heat, sweating and prolonged bending'. (Sidney J. Baker, The Au stralian Language.) It was also known as 'Barcoo spew', 'Barcoo sickness' and 'B arcoo vomit'. I have quoted on many occasions the shearers' rhyme of the 1890s: On the far Barcoo Where they eat nardoo,

Jumbuck giblets and pigweed stew, Fever and ague And scurvy plague you And the Barcoo rot; But the worst of the lot Is the Bel-y-ando, spew. This jingle, as Lyndall Hadow pointed out in the Melbourne Herald (May 13, 1944) , was composed during the 1891 shearers' strike in Queensland. Barcoo Sickness Barcoo sickness, so common about here [Central Australia, is caused by the flies getting into the system and causing severe retching, which sometimes continues for weeks and is a very serious matter. These obnoxious little wretches will fin d out every tiny scratch on the skin and will irritate until they cause inflamma tion. Francis E. Birtles, Lonely Lands: Through the Heart of Australia, 1909 ---Bites and Stings Browning sums up the whole sorry business: Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Bees, Stings of Squeeze the sting out if any be in the skin, and rub on the part a little olive oil. If the inflammation of the wound does not subside, apply a poultice. The Em igrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 For the Relief of Bee-Stings Apply honey to the injured parts. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The (Australian) Househo ld Manual, c. 1899 A Treatment for Scorpion and Centipede Bites Light a match and immediately, before the phosphorescent head is burnt out, thru st it on the bite. This cauterizes the wound, and takes away infection. If you h ave no matches, a small firestick will do. Bill Harney, in collaboration with Pa tricia Thomson, Bill Harney's Cook Book, 1960 To Cure the Bite of a Mad Dog (Old English) Take two quarts of strong ale, two pennyworth of treacle, two garlick-heads, a h andful of cinquefoil, sage and rue; boil them all together to a quart; strain it , and give the patient three or four spoonfuls twice a day: take ditany, agrimony, and rusty bacon, beaten well together, and apply to the s ore, to keep it from festering. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 The Folklore of Hydrophobia From the most remote period no disease, perhaps, has possessed such a curious hi story, or been invested with so many superstitions as hydrophobia, and the count less remedies suggested for its cure form an important chapter in folk-medicine. In tracing back its history, we find that it was not only regarded by our ances tors with the same horror as now-a-days, but that every conceivable device was r esorted to for removing its fatal effects. Thus, Pliny relates the case of a Rom an soldier who was cured by the dog-rose, a remedy said to have been revealed to

the man's mother in a dream. Among sundry other remedies he enumerates the hair of a man's head, goose-grease, fuller's earth, colewort, fish-brine, &c., as ap plications to the wounds. The favourite cure of Dioscorides was hellebore, and G alen's principal one was the river-crab. Sucking the wound seems also to have be en considered efficacious. Passing on to modern times, the extraordinary remedie s still employed are a convincing proof of the extent to which superstition occa sionally reaches. The list, indeed, is not an inviting one, consisting among other things of the l iver of a male goat, the tail of a shrew-mouse, the brain and comb of a cock, th e worm under the tongue of a mad dog, horse-dung, pounded ants, and cuckoo soup. It may seem, too, incredible to us that less than a century ago the suffocation of the wretched victim was not unfrequently resorted to, and instances of this barbarous practice may be found in the periodical literature of bygone years. Th us, in The Dublin Chronicle (28th October, 1798), the following circumstances ar e recorded.-'A fine boy, aged fourteen, was bitten by a lady's lap-dog near Dubl in. In about two hours the youth was seized with convulsive fits, and shortly af ter with hydrophobia; and, notwithstanding every assistance, his friends were ob liged to smother him between two feather beds.' In the year 1712, four persons w ere tried at York Assizes for smothering a boy, who had been bitten by a mad dog , on a similar plea as that uttered by Othello: 'I that am cruel am yet merciful: I would not have thee linger in thy pain.' As recently as the year 1867 this mode of death was put into execution in the to wn of Greenfield, Michigan. A little girl having been seized with hydrophobia, a consultation was held by the physicians, and as soon as it had been decided by them that she could not recover, her parents put an end to her sufferings by smo thering her to death. The folk-lore of this disease is most extensive, and . . . we cannot do better than recommend our readers to consult Mr Dolan's capital vo lume on 'Rabies, or Hydrophobia', which contains an excellent description of the antiquity and history of this cruel complaint, and of superstitions which surro und it. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 A Certain Cure for the Bite of a Mad Dog [This is virtually the same recipe as that given as 'Dr Mead's Recipe for the Bi te of a mad Dog' in The Compleat Housewife, 1753.] Let the patient be blooded at the arm nine or ten ounces. Take of the herb calle d in Latin Lichen cenereus terristris, in English ash-coloured ground Liverwort, cleaned, dried and powdered half an ounce. Of black pepper powdered two drachms . Mix these well together and divide the powder into four doses, one of which mu st be taken every morning fasting for four mornings successively, in half a pint of cow's milk warm. After these four doses are taken, the patient must go into the cold bath, or a cold spring or river, every morning fasting for a month. He must be dipped all over but not to stay in (with his head above water) longer th an half a minute, if the water be very cold. After this he must go in three time s a week for a fortnight longer. N.B. The lichen is a very common herb and grows generally in sandy and barren so il all over England. The right time to gather it is in the months of October and November. Mrs [Hannah] Glasse, The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, 1745 For the Relief of Hornet Stings Apply St Jacob's oil. If that is not at hand, rub with the blue bag, wet. Mrs Th eo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899

The Bushman's Remedy for Snakebite The 'Bush' remedy for snakebite is as follows:-When the wound is on the leg, arm , or finger, a strong piece of string is tied near the wounded part, between it and the heart, being tied sufficiently tight to stop the circulation. The bitten part is then cut out with a knife, and the wound well sucked for about ten minu tes. The patient is made to swallow a large quantity of pure whisky, brandy, or any spirit at hand, and made to lie down in the open air, but on no account allo wed to go to sleep. Mrs Theo. p. Winning, The {Australian) Household Manual, c. 1899 Dr Chase's Remedy for Snakebite (Old American) Rub oil of sassafras into the wound, and give a dose of the same every half hour till all danger is past. Dose for a child, 15 drops. For an adult, 30 drops. Af terwards give a dose of castor oil to work it off by the bowels. Ibid Curing Snakebite on Groote Island On Groote Island, a number of people were getting bitten by death adders. As the y went barefooted, the bites were almost always on the foot. The Reverend Harris , a Church of England rector told me that he used the following method: He would cut deeply into the bite, and then he would wait. The poison would gradually tr avel up the vein, and form a lump. The native would show him where the pain was, and he would cut again at that point and squeeze out the poison and jellified b lood. He would repeat this treatment three or four times, by which time all the poison would be out. Bill Harney's Cook Book, 1960 Johnson's Snakebite Antidote The search for an effective snakebite cure has long been the subject matter of b ush legends. There's the tale of one Johnson, for instance. 'Banjo' Paterson tel ls us his unhappy story: "Down Where Where There along the Snakebite River where the overlanders camp, the serpents are in millions, all of the most deadly stamp .... the adder and the viper tear each other by the throat it was that William Johnson sought his snakebite antidote."

Fear of snakes had made old Johnson slightly 'queer', and he'd tramp for days ar ound his property 'seeking for some great specific that would cure the serpent's bite.' One day he came upon a tiger snake and a goanna fighting to the death blow. The goanna won the tussle and having swallowed its opponent hurried off until it cam e to a certain bush, the leaves of which it began to nibble. Johnson watched bre athless as, licking its lips, the goanna trotted off contentedly. 'Luck at last!' shouted William Johnson. 'I've struck it! It's the famous antido te!' He prepared a strong brew from the leaves of the goanna's tree, and then hurried off with his concoction to the nearest museum. 'Trot me out the deadliest snake you've got,' he said to a scientist he met there. 'I intend to let him bite me: I'll take the risk just to prove the value of my cure.' The scientist politely suggested that if he must try out his remedy it would be better to use his sheep-dog as a guinea pig. Johnson agreed. So his dog Stumpy w as brought in, and another dog as well, and both were injected with deadly venom . Johnson's dog was also given a dose of the snakebite antidote.

'In twenty minutes Stump'll be rushing round, while the other wretched creature' s a corpse,' said Johnson with supreme confidence. "But, alas for William Johnson! ere they'd watched a half-hour's spell Stumpy was as dead as mutton, t'other dog was live and well. And the scientific person hurried off with utmost speed, Tested Johnson's drug and found it was a deadly poisonweed; Half a tumbler killed an emu, half a spoonful killed a goat All the snakes on earth were harmless to that awful antidote." Bill Wannan, Hay, Hell and Booligal, 1961 A Welsh Antidote for a Spider's Bite Take nine cloves of garlic and peel carefully, a spoonful of treacle, a quart of new strong ale, mix these together and give them to the patient to drink freely at the same time cover him with an abundance of clothes so that he may perspire well. If he can retain this position for an hour he will escape even though the integument had become mottled. This medicament is also useful for a person bitt en by an adder. Quoted by Dorothy Jacob, Cures and Curses, 1967 ---Bleeding For the use of cobweb to stop bleeding, see the Spiders And Cobweb entry. To Stop the Bleeding of Cuts * 1. Bathe well with cold water, and keep wet bandages to the cut. If possible, use half water and half whisky. * 2. Apply cobwebs and brown sugar pressed on like lint. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 For Stoppinge of Blood by the Nose, Mouth or Ears (Old English) Take in March or May cheefly a faire linnen Cloathe nine daies drying the loathe in the wind every day ce of the Cloathe and put it in the place where the l frequently stoppe. Robt. Bulkeley His Book, 1641, es and Curses, 1967 in the same spawne of Froggs and when you need take a pie Blood cometh out and it shal quoted in Dorothy Jacob, Cur

An Old English Recipe to Stop Bleeding at Mouth, Nose or Ears In the month of May take a clean cloth, and wet it in the spawn of frogs, nine d ays, drying it every day in the wind; lay up that cloth, and when you have need, hold it to the place where the blood runs, and it will stop. E. Smith, The Comp leat Housewife, 1753 To Stop Bleeding of the Nose Move the jaws vigorously as in the act of chewing. In the case of a child, give him a wad of paper, and make him chew it hard. Mrs. Theo. P. Winning, The [Austr alian] Household Manual, c. 1899 For a Violent Bleeding at the Nose (An Old English Recipe) Let the party put their feet in warm water; and if that does not do, let them si

t higher in it. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Old English Ways to Stop Nose Bleeding A key, on account of the coldness of the metal of which it is composed, is often placed on the person's back; and hence the term 'key-cold' has become proverbia l, an allusion to which we find in King Richard 111. (Act i., sc. 2), where Lady Anne, speaking of the corpse of King Henry VI., exclaims: 'Poor key-cold figure of a holy king.' A Norfolk remedy consists in wearing a skein of scarlet silk round the neck, tie d with nine knots in the front. If the patient is a male, the silk should be put on and the knots tied by a female, and vice versa. In some places a toad is kil led by transfixing it with some sharp-pointed instrument, after which it is encl osed in a little bag and suspended round the neck. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Do mestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 To Relieve Bleeding from Wounds Bind on a mixture of equal parts of flour and salt. Use dry. Mrs Theo. P. Winnin g, The [Australian) Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Boils Those who read of this painful subject with equanimity cannot do better than ref er to ABSCESSES, where there is a wealth of further information. A Useful Poultice for Boils &c. A flour and treacle poultice is a quick cure for either an abscess or a boil. Go lden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] To Bring Boil up Fast Heat a glass jar with very hot water, pour off the water, and place the jar quic kly over the boil. It will rapidly draw the affliction. This treatment is, howev er, agonising, and the pain is increased when you try to pull the jar free. B. C . of Mackay (Q), in a letter to the Editor An 'Infallible Remedy' for a Boil or Carbuncle This is recommended by 'Stickybeak'. 'It is an infallible remedy,' she writes, ' and I hope it will relieve others as it has relieved me. Put some Epsom salts in a saucer and place it in the oven until it becomes a powder. Mix it with a litt le pure glycerine, put the mixture on cotton wool and pad with linen. When bathi ng the boil or carbuncle, put a pinch of salts in the water. This information wa s gleaned from a nurse in a district hospital. Doctors prescribe it for boils, & c.' The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 'The Best Remedy for a Boil' The skin of a boiled egg is the best remedy for a boil. Carefully peel it, wet, and apply to the boil. It draws out the matter and relieves soreness. Kandy Koola Cook Book, n.d. A Bush Method of Drawing out a Boil

One effective way of 'drawing out a boil' was to sweat some mulga leaves over ho t stones and then bind them over the swelling. B.D. of North Melbourne, in a letter to the Editor. ---Bottles for Medicine A Strange Superstition There is a belief among the Sussex peasantry that bottles which have contained m edicine should never be sold, or else they will soon be required to be filled ag ain for some one in the house. -Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Bronchitis Old Australian Remedies for Bronchitis The pioneers had some strange cures for bronchitis. One of them was to wear a pi ece of brown paper, pierced with holes, around the neck at night in bed. Another was to wear next to the throat the foot part of the stocking or sock you had wo rn during the day. Next morning you were cured. (That was the claim, anyway!) E. S. of Hervey Bay (Q), in a letter to the Editor ---Bruises In one of his letters, written in 1819, Keats tells how he was hit in the eye by a cricket ball while playing that game for the first time. The poet's companion , Charles Brown, 'always one's friend in a disaster', applied a leech to the eye lid, apparently with satisfactory results. Leeches were commonly applied to brui ses in many parts of Australia during the 19th century, although a piece of raw steak has long had its advocates. [Insert pic p029] To Take off Blackness by a Fall (Old English) Rub it well with a cold tallow candle, as soon as it is bruised; and this will take off the blackness. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 For Slight Bruises Rub gently with a piece of rag or wool dipped in olive oil, and then cover with a compress saturated with the oil. This gives instant relief, and is better than arnica [medicine made from a species of mountain tobacco. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The (Australian) Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Burns and Scalds Cow Manure for Burns

An old gardener in my employ told me that as a small boy living in the bush he f ell into a fire and badly burned his hands. He proudly added that his mother 'sa ved me finger nails by wrapping the hands in cow manure'. The nails looked a bit odd, but I have no reason to doubt the story. Mrs D. R. b f Box Hill South (V), in a letter to the Editor To Relieve the Pain of Burns If accidentally burnt with an oven tray or door, apply some wetted carbonate of soda at once. This will relieve the pain almost immediately. P.W.M.U. Cookery Bo ok of Victoria, 1904 To Relieve Burns Whenever you get a burn or a sprinkle of boiling water (which sometimes happens to every careful cook), apply cream at once, and it will never blister or become sore. Mrs. W. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 Old English Charms for Burns and Scalds According to a deep-rooted notion among our rural population, the most efficacio us cure for a scald or burn is to be found in certain word-charms, mostly of a r eligious character. One example runs as follows:'There came two angels from the north, One was Fire, and one was Frost. Out Fire: in Frost, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' Many of our peasantry, instead of consulting a doctor in the case of severe burn , often resort to some old woman supposed to possess the gift of healing. A pers on of this description formerly resided in a village in Suffolk. When consulted she prepared a kind of ointment, which she placed on the part affected, and afte r making the sign of the cross, repeated the following formula three times: 'There were two angels came from the north, One brought fire, the other brought frost; Come out fire, go in frost, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.' Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Camphor For Influenza, Colds &c. Camphor, tied in a little bag and suspended on the chest, was considered by the old-timers to be an effective method of preventing influenza and such ail ments. Mrs B. B. of East Brighton (V), in a letter to the Editor ---Cancer This terrible scourge has a long English folklore behind it. In 17th century Bri tain, the people of some countries considered the swallowing of live young frogs an efficacious remedy; more recently, the use of an infusion of twenty violet l eaves to allay the pains of cancer has been recorded. The interested reader shou ld consult the Radfords' Encyclopaedia of Superstitions.

[Insert pic p034] Cancers - A Recipe Worth a Fortune In ten cases of cancer this simple remedy has failed in none:-Red clover tops ar e to be used in the manner of tea. This unpretentious plant cannot be urged on the public too strongly for its wonderful power and direct action ov er a cancer or for any cutaneous affection. The writer of this prescription says , 'out of fifteen cases of cancer that-my brother physicians have abandoned as i ncurable, I have cured with this wonderful remedy, red clover tops'. All that is required is to make a tea of it, and drink freely during the day, and wet a rag in the tea, this apply to the cancerous sore. Golden Remedies: Knowledge it Pow er, n.d. {19th century} An Old English Milk Water for a Cancerous Breast Take six quarts of new milk, four handfuls of cranes-bill [a species of wild ger anium, and four hundred of wood-lice; distil this in a cold still with a gentle fire; then take an ounce of crabs-eyes [small round morbid particles found in th e bodies of crayfish] (*), and half an ounce of white sugar-candy, both in fine powder; mix them together, and take a drachm of the powder in a quarter of a pin t of the milk water in the morning, at twelve at noon, and at night; continue ta king this three or four months, it is an excellent medicine. E. Smith, The Compl eat Housewife, 1753 [*] The association of the crab with the Latin, cancer, suggests a kind of sympa thetic magic at work here. However, crab's eyes, being composed of carbonate of lime to a large extent, were recognised as having antacid properties. Ed. ---Castor Oil 'The Safest Purgative Known' Castor Oil.-This is the safest purgative known; it corrects acrid bile, and stre ngthens and cleanses the stomach and bowels. The dose is from one to three table spoonfuls, taken in some pleasant liquid. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 185 3 ---Cats The domestic cat has had, on the whole, an unenviable history. Worshipped as a s ource of divine power in one era, it has been reviled as the associate of witche s, and of the Devil himself, in another. But still, it does seem to know how to survive. An Old Cure for Erysipelas This distemper has been popularly called 'St Anthony's Fire', from the legend th at it was miraculously checked by that saint when raging in many parts of Europe in the eleventh century. A remedy in use among the lower orders, and extending as far as the Highlands, is to cut off one half of the ear of a cat, and to let the blood drop on the part affected-a practice which is evidently a survival of the primitive notion that a living sacrifice appeased the wrath of God. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881

'Breath Drawn by a Cat' One curious result of the extraordinary state of the law in New South Wales [c. late 1880s] is, that any person can give a death certificate. So long as it is s igned by someone, the undertaker may bury the body. Not long ago a new Registrar General was appointed, and this fact struck him with such amazement that he tri ed to institute something better. He found he was powerless to do anything excep t to demand that the signer of the document should indicate thereon whether he w as qualified or not. The certificate itself states that the person signing saw t he deceased before his or her death (the number of times and date of last visit is given), and what he or she died of. The diseases to which they succumb are of ten very curious. 'Fits' is very commonly set down as the cause of death. 'Worms in the Bowels', 'Want of Breath', 'Weakness', 'Debility', there are a few more; as for the 'Fevers', 'Inflammations', 'Colds', &c., without any more specific i ndications, their name is legion. One infant was certified of coming to an untim ely end through the instrumentality of a cat. 'Breath drawn by a cat' (*) was th e entry on the certificate, I believe. I should like to know the end of that par ticular puss. I suspect it was a tragic one, and that he was the innocent victim of a silly superstition. Edward Kinglake, The Australian at Home, 1891 [*] T.F. Thiselton Dyer has something to say on this old English folk belief in his Domestic Folk-Lore (c. 1881) : 'Once more, in addition to the popular notion that cats suck the breath of infants and so cause their death-one, indeed, with out a particle of truth-there is another in which poor pussy is the victim, an i llustration of which we quote from "Rambles in an Old City", by a Norfolk author : - 'Not long since a woman, holding quite a respectable rank among the working classes, avowed herself determined to 'drownd' the cat as soon as ever her baby, which was lying ill should die. The only explanation she could give for this de termination was that the cat jumped upon the nurse's lap as the baby lay there s oon after it was born, from which time it ailed, and ever since that time the ca t had regularly gone under its bed once a day and coughed twice. These mysteriou s actions of poor 'Tabby' were assigned as the cause of the baby wasting, and it s fate was to be sealed as soon as that of the poor infant was decided. That the baby happened to be the twenty-fourth child of his mother, who had succeeded in rearing only four of the two dozen, was a fact that seemed to possess no weight whatever in her estimation." This strange antipathy to our domestic animal no d oubt took its origin in the old belief that the cat's is one of the numerous for ms which witches are fond of assuming, and on this account, in days gone by, poo r pussy was oftentimes subjected to gross ill-treatment at the hands of the igno rant classes.' ---Chest Ailments Over and over again, in English folk medicine, we find snails being used to over come a wide variety of ailments. Thus, one 18th century gentleman wrote in June, 1792, '1 drank snail tea for breakfast, for my chest is very sore.' A Recipe for a Weak Chest Ingredients: 1/2 pint of whisky, 1/2 pound golden syrup, 1 ounce pure glycerine. Mode: Mix these ingredients thoroughly, pour into a bottle, and take a tablespo on two or three .times a day. Mrs Lance Rawson, The Antipodean Cookery Book and Kitchen Companion, 1895 ---Chilblains

As you will discover if you peruse these pages carefully, the 'vessel under the bed' was one of the most potent sources of chilblains curing. Indeed, urine was once thought to have the same magical powers as spittle and human blood. In Aust ralia, as in the British Isles, the belief in the curative properties of one's o wn urine, especially for corns, warts and chilblains, has not yet been entirely eradicated. For Chilblains (An Old English Recipe) Roast a turnip soft; beat it to mash, and apply it as hot as can be endured to t he part affected; let it lie on two or three days, and repeat it two or three ti mes. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 An Australian Country Cure for Chilblains If equal parts of methylated spirits and separated milk are mixed together, and applied to chilblains night and morning, it will be found a good cure. A.M.G. Qu oted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 A Liniment Chilblains. - Mustard liniment twice a day is often a successful application. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 An Effective Cure for Chilblains 'E.W.,' of Sorrell, Tasmania, suggested that 'a simple and effective cure for ch ilblains will be found by bathing parts affected with water that potatoes have b een boiled in. Strain water off and use at once, or, otherwise, boil up again be fore using, as it must be used as hot as can possibly be borne to be effective. Parts affected may be bathed with the water until it is possible to put hands or feet right in. It will be found a sure cure if persevered with. The Leader Spar e Corner Book, 1930 ---Cholera To Ward off the Cholera Should the cholera show itself in the district, to prevent its attack take a tea spoonful of cinnamon in hot water frequently; or, this simple remedy has never b een known to fail, first, give the patient hot water to cause vomiting, which cl eanses the stomach; next toast an oat cake, this put into ,, a pint of boiling w ater and drink freely. Golden Recipes: Knowledge it Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Colds 'This Cures any Sort of Cold' Half a drachm of carminate of ammonia, one ounce of syrup of tolu, a quarter of an ounce of spirits of nitre, half a drachm of laudanum, and six ounces of water ; take one tablespoon three times a day. This cures any sort of cold. Or, severe colds are cured with herb yarrow {milfoil), which bears a white and pink flower , the pink should be chosen; use it in the manner of tea, sweetened with treacle , and drink it freely on going to bed. Tickling coughs are quickly cured with on

e ounce of honey and one tablespoon of paregoric, mixed with the juice of a lemo n, and taken going to bed. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. (19th centur y) For the Relief of Colds Extract of eucalyptus is valuable for coughs and colds, but should be used spari ngly if taken internally, as overdoses have very injurious effects. For cold in the head, moisten the nostrils with the spirit frequently. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 To Relieve Infants' Colds (An Australian Cure) One teaspoonful pure olive oil, 1 teaspoonful honey. Juice of lemon added to sti ffly beaten white of 1 egg; given at short intervals is remarkably good. Portlan d (V). Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 ---Colic Many English folk once regarded the hare's foot (in Australia, the rabbit's paw) as an admirable charm against colic. Here is Pepys on the subject, writing in h is diary in January, 1665: 'So home, and by and by again abroad with my wife abo ut several businesses, and met at the New Exchange, and there to our trouble fou nd our pretty Doll is gone away to live they say with her father in the country, but I doubt something worse. So homeward, in my way buying a hare and taking it home, which arose upon my discourse to-day with Mr Batten, in Westminster Hall, who showed me my mistake that my hare's foote hath not the joynt to it; and ass ures me he never had his cholique since he carried it about him: and it is a str ange thing how fancy works, for I no sooner almost handled his foote but my bell y began to be loose and to break wind, and whereas I was in some pain yesterday and tother day and in fear of more to-day, I became very well, and so continue.' An Old English Cure for the Colic Let the patient, when they find any symptoms of a fit, take a pint of milk, warm , put into it four spoonfuls of brandy, and eat it up, and so let them take it a ny other time if they are subject to that distemper, it will prevent the fit. Th is cured Mr Blundell of Hampstead, after he had the advice of several other phys icians, and had been at the Bath without success. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewi fe, 1753 A Bush Cure for Colic Colic, pains in the stomach. The red young tips of the gum tree, plucked off and eaten, relieve pain in the stomach. The basic ingredient, 'crude eucalyptus', i s the medicine. Bill Harney's Cook Book, 1960 Relief for a Severe Colic severe cases of colic can be relieved by applying cloths dipped in hot water and wrung as dry as possible to the part. P.W.M.U. Cookery Book of Victoria, 1904 ---Colours and Folk Medicine A Sarsfield (V) correspondent has told me that in his childhood a flannel binder

was customarily worn around the body in cases of lumbago and sciatica. 'It was known as "doctor flannel", and it had to be coloured red. No other colour would do.' Curative Properties of Colours The curative properties attributed to some colours is illustrated by the treatme nt formerly employed in cases of small-pox. Thus, red bed-coverings were thought to bring the pustules to the surface of the body, and the patient was recommend ed to look at red substances. Purple dye, pomegranate seeds, or other red ingred ients were dissolved in his drink, with the idea that as red is the colour of th e blood, so disorders of the blood system should be treated by red. The renowned English physician, John of Gaddesden, introduced the practice into [England], a nd tried its efficacy on one of the sons of King Edward I., adding to his report , 'et est bona cura'. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 An Old Scottish Cure for Whooping-Cough 'A Scotch remedy,' wrote Thiselton Dyer, 'is to place a piece of red flannel rou nd the patient's neck; the virtue residing, says Mr Napier, not in the flannel b ut in the red colour, red having been a colour symbolical of triumph and victory over all enemies.' ---Consumption, or Tuberculosis The giant strides made by medical science in the conquering of this disease in t he past quarter of a century give added interest to the two extracts which follo w. An Old English Cock Water for Consumption Take an old cock, kill him and quarter him, and with clean cloths wipe the blood from him; then put the quarters into a cold still, part of a leg of veal, two q uarts of old Malaga sack, a handful of thyme, as much sweet marjoram and rosemar y, two handfulls of pimpernel, four dates stoned and sliced, a pound of currants , as many raisins of the sun stoned, a pound of sugar-candy finely beaten; when all is in paste up the still, let it stand all night, the next morning distil it , mix the water together, and sweeten it to your taste with white sugar-candy; d rink three or four spoonfuls an hour before dinner and supper. E. Smith, The Com pleat Housewife, 1753 Cod Liver Oil This is the only remedy yet discovered for the cure of the first stages of consu mption. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 ---Contagion In the light ,of current worries about the pollution of the Australian environme nt, Edward Kinglake's references to the problem, as it existed in Sydney and Mel bourne in the late 1880s, make interesting reading. Pollution - 1880s Style Typhoid fever is a terrible scourge in Australia. It seizes all alike and the st rongest man is often the one to succumb. It especially haunts the suburbs of the

large cities, which are too often grossly neglected in sanitary matters. 'It can't be the drains, Sir,' said the old landlady in Punch to the man who is fussing about an unhealthy smell, 'because there are none.' The same remark might be truthfully made about certain parts adjacent to Melbour ne and Sydney. In the former city there is so much cause for complaint that many ill-natured pe ople dub it 'Smellbourne'. The lower part of the river Yarra is certainly a most unsavoury place. They have often sewers too in Melbourne which are objectionabl e. The lovely harbour-just fancy gossiping for all this time about Australia withou t having mentioned the incomparable Port Jackson, Sydney's crowning glory-about which, people when they first come to that city are bored to death for their opi nion; so much so, in fact, that one traveller affixed to his coat a card bearing the inscription, 'I admire your botanical gardens and I think your harbour is b eautiful'. I was going to say that the lovely harbour at Sydney is so polluted w ith sewage that nearly all the fish in it have been killed. What the sewage left the nets got. Once there was a time when a man in a boat could catch as many br eam, whiting, flathead, and many other kinds of fish as he wanted. That time is past. However, the bulk of the drainage is now carried far out to the ocean belo w the South Head of Port Jackson, but the fish have not re-appeared. All over Australia the most stringent regulations are enforced on the subject of quarantine. Quite a little panic occurs if a ship approaches with a case of sma ll-pox on board. Six years ago when there were three or four cases in Sydney, th e whole city was in a state of excitement and apprehension. The fear of infection is a marked characteristic of Australians, especially thos e who live in the country. A case of illness in their neighbourhood throws them into a state of consternation, and they talk for a time of nothing else. Some la dies never go to the cities themselves and have a strong objection to send their children there to school or on visits to friends, because of the greater risk o f contagion. Edward Kinglake, The Australian at Home, 1891 Cobwebs and Fevers Fevers.-To burn rosemary in the room clears fever away; yet if there be a spider 's web in the house the fever will linger to it. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Po wer, n.d. {19th century For a Sick Room A cloth wet in lime water, and hung in a sick room, will keep the air very pure. Kandy Koola Cook Book, n.d. To Prevent Contagion On visiting a sick chamber, chew a little ginger, which prevents contagion. Gold en Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Copper Old Australian Ways of Warding off Rheumatism Rheumatism was dispelled by ant-bites, or by the less drastic method of winding

ten strands of copper wire around the wrist. Sometimes, by simply carrying a pot ato around in the pocket, the rheumatics disappeared. The old-timers claimed tha t, as the potato withered, it 'sucked the acid out of the system'. From Alan Mar shall's unpublished notebooks A Copper and Vinegar Cure for Corns Pour two teaspoonfuls of vinegar into an eggcup. Drop into it a piece of copper wire. Let stand for a couple of days; then use as follows: Just paint the corns with vinegar-soaked wire once or twice a day. Corns become soft, and can be lift ed out without soreness. Mrs R.H. of Essendon (V); in a letter to the Editor Another for the Same Hard Corns.-Soak copper (pennies will do) in strong vinegar for 4 hours. Apply t he liquid night and morning until the corn is remove No matter how long standing the corn may be, it will disappear if this treatment is continued. Mrs S. G. of North Creswick (V), in a letter to the Editor ---Coral The Radfords' Encyclopaedia of Superstitions says this of coral: 'From antiquity down to our own times, red coral has been used in amulets and charms of many ki nds. It is said to avert the Evil Eye, and in southern Europe it is still very o ften worn for this reason. In England formerly, it protected its owner against e pilepsy and the spells of witches, and preserved any house or ship that containe d it from damage by lightning, storms and whirlwinds. When worn on the person, i t served as an indication of its wearer's state of health, turning pale when he was ill and regaining its true colour as he recovered.' The Virtues of Coral (Old English) Coral is good to be hanged from children's necks as well as to rub their gums to preserve them from the falling sickness [epilepsy]; it hath also some special s ympathy with nature for the best coral being worn about the neck will turn pale and wan if the party that wears it be sick and come to its former colour again a s they recover health. Plat's Jewel House of Art and Nature, quoted in Dorothy J acob, Cures and Curses, 1967 To Prevent Convulsions in Children (An Old English Remedy) Take ten grains of coral finely powder'd, give it in breast-milk or black-cherry -water, it prevents their ever having any convulsion fits. E. Smith, The Complea t Housewife, 1753 ---Corns I suppose the wisest advice I ever heard on this subject was the comment, 'If yo u want to get rid of corns, go barefooted'. Which is not unlike the prudent obse rvation of the 18th century Dr Thomas Fuller, 'The only way to be sure of not lo sing a child, is never to have any'. An Old English Cure for Corns Take the yeast of beer (not of ale) and spread it on a linen rag, and apply it t o the part affected; renew it once a day for three or four weeks; it will cure.

E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 To Relieve Pressure on Corns It is no use to merely cut away the hard skin that forms the top of the corn, no r even to pick out the root with the finger nail, or with the point of a pair of scissors. The foot should be well soaked in water, warm water; which softens th e corn. Then all thick skin on the surface should be picked off with the finger nails. The broad spreading top of the corn, now being removed, a thin soft layer of scarf skin only remains, except in the centre, where a little hard, white, h orny substance is found, which is the root of the corn. If the root of the corn be nearly and pretty well got out, a little conical cavity is left, in which it had been lodged; this is the part which must be protected until the skin below h as ceased to be irritated. For this purpose, have some thick buff leather, sprea d on one side with soap plaster, rings of which must be cut out and laid one upo n the other, the first having a hole sufficiently large to give the corn a 'wide berth', and the hole of each succeeding ring being less than the former, till t he topmost ring has no hole in it. This allows the corn to be free from pressure and gives ease allowing the person to walk miles, though previously he could sc arcely hobble across the room. If inflammation follows, then it is necessary to soak the foot well in warm water, put a poultice on the toe, and keep the foot u p on the sofa, otherwise the consequences may be serious, and even fatal. Corns on palms of hands through hard work need not be treated; when retirement comes t hese will soon disappear of themselves. John F. South, Household Surgery, or Hin ts on Emergencies, 1850 A Reliable Corn Cure For corns:-Make a paste of carbonate of soda and castor oil, and apply to the co rn. It raises .the corn, and it can then be cut away easily. This has proved a v ery reliable cure. The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 Simple and Effectual Cures for Corns * 1. Make an ointment of equal parts of carbonate of soda and common soap; sprea d on a piece of thick rag, bind upon the corn, and leave it till morning. First soak the foot in hot water for ten minutes. * 2. Or apply in the same manner a little ointment made of pure lard and sulphur , equal parts. * 3. Soak the corns in hot water and a little washing soda, pare them, touch wit h a little acetic acid, and wear a corn-plaster. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Aust ralian] Household Manual c. 1899 The Button Cure Here is a remedy for corns which I have seen my mother use with success: Place o ne pure mother-of-pearl button (not imitation) in a saucer. Squeeze lemon juice over the button night and morning for seven days. The button turns into a paste; and this paste is then spread over the corn, and covered with a bandage. Repeat daily until corn is eaten away. P. A. of Broadmeadows (V), in a letter to the E ditor Sir Astley Cooper's Infallible Cure for Corns [It seems that Sir Astley Paston Cooper (1768-1841), the eminent English surgeon , will long be remembered in folklore as the originator of the following recipe for the treatment of corns, said by many who have used it to be 'an infallible c ure'.]

Gum ammonia, 2 ozs; yellow wax, 2 ozs; verdigris, 6 drachms. Melt them together and spread the composition on a piece of soft leather, or linen. Cut away as muc h of the corn as you can before you apply the plaster; renew in a fortnight, if the corn is not gone. ---Coughs An Old English Cure for a Cough Take three quarts of spring-water, and put it in a large pipkin, with a calf's-f oot, and four spoonfuls of barley, and a handful of dried poppies; boil it toget her till one quart be consumed; then strain it out, and add a little cinnamon, a nd a pint of milk, and sweeten it to your taste with loaf-sugar; warm it a littl e, and drink half a pint as often as you please. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewif e, 1753 A Good Cough Mixture 3 tablespoonsful linseed, boiled in 3 pints of water, with a sprig of horehound, 2 lemons, 2 tablespoonsful vinegar, 1 stick liquorice (broken), 1 cup honey, 1/ 2 lb. raisins. Boil about 1/2 an hour; strain when cold; before bottling add 1/- worth best rum ; take an egg cupful 3 times a day when cough is troublesome. P.W.M.U. Cookery B ook of Victoria, 1904 And Another 1 cup of honey, 1 cup of treacle, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of vinegar, three pennyw orth of liquorice. Break up the liquorice and put in vinegar; let it stand all night; put remains o f ingredients into saucepan, and boil for ten minutes; when nearly cold put in t hree pennyworth paregoric [a tincture of opium] and three pennyworth of ipecacua nha wine; stir well and bottle for use. Dose-1 tablespoonful in a little hot wat er for adult; 1 teaspoonful for children. Ibid ---Cowdung Cowdung Poultice {I received this letter from 'Grandma' of Mount Barker (W.A.), in 1963.1 'Some y ears ago, a maternity nurse in a certain country district in the West, who was r enowned for her cures, told me of the remarkable results she had had from using cowdung poultices-not only in cases of boils and breast abscesses but for bronch itis and pneumonia, when no other remedies could be found. Being rather disgusted at the thought of such a poultice, I told her so. She exp lained, however, that coming from the body of a perfectly clean animal that was a ruminant, eating only grasses and herbs, the dung especially when hot and fres h from the body-was perfect for dressing; and spread on clean linen and applied to the affected part was as good as linseed. I saw her use a cowdung poultice to draw a thorn from her own badly infected finger.' [Insert pic p056]

---Cramp This ailment has inspired its fair share of superstitions, as the following obse rvations all too clearly demonstrate. To Prevent Cramp in Bed Cramp in bed is prevented by placing a roll of brimstone [sulphur] under the pil low; or hold a little flour of sulphur in the hand. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century English Charms Against Cramp Of the many charms resorted to for the cure of this painful disorder, a common o ne consists in wearing about the person the patella or knee-cap of a sheep or la mb, which is known in some places as the 'cramp-bone'. This is worn as near the skin as possible, and at night is laid under the pillow. In many counties finger -rings made from the screws or handles of coffins are still considered excellent preservatives, and in Lancashire it is prevented by either placing the shoes at bed-time with the toes just peeping from beneath the covelet, or by carrying br imstone [sulphur] about with one during the day. Some, again, wear a tortoise-sh ell ring, while others have equal faith in tying the garter round the left leg b elow the knee. In days gone by a celebrated cure for this complaint was the 'cra mp-ring', allusions to which we find in many of our old authors. Its supposed vi rtue was conferred by solemn consecration on Good Friday. Rev. T. F. Thiselton D yer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 How to Relieve Cramps Adults: Infuse one ounce of yarrow and a quarter ounce of cayenne in one pint of boiling water, and drink until relieved. Children: Make the yarrow tea without cayenne. Kandy Koola Cook Book, n.d. A Charm to Cure Cramp Among some of the many charms in which the shoe has been found efficacious, may be mentioned one practised in the North of England, where the peasantry, to cure cramp, are in the habit of laying their shoes across to avert it. Mrs Latham, i n her 'West Sussex Superstitions', published in the 'Folk-lore Record', tells us of an old woman who was at a complete loss to understand why her 'rheumatics wa s so uncommon bad, for she had put her shoes in the form of a cross every night by the side of her head, ever since she felt the first twinge'. In the same coun ty, a cure for ague consists in wearing a leaf of tansy {the aromatic herb, Tana cetum vulgare) in the shoe. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 18 81 ---Cuts and Wounds For a great deal of information about old-time treatment of cuts and wounds the energetic reader should consult these entries: Bleeding; Eucalyptus; Ointments A nd Salves. Simple Methods of Healing Cuts A bruised geranium leaf applied to a cut quickly heals it; powdered rice sprinkl

ed on a cut or wound stops bleeding at once: or for a cut that festers apply tur pentine. Golden Recipes: Knowledge it Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Diarrhoea A Cause of Diarrhoea Water Impure.-A young man continually subject to diarrhoea, discovered it to be caused by drinking cold water, during the night, out of a wooden bowl; inside wh ich, when examined, some white lines were found, and these proved to be a tribe of insects or animalculae deposited by the water and wood, and this was the caus e of his illness. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. {19th century} For the Same Diarrhoea.-Raspberry leaf tea is one of the best remedies for diarrhoea; or, flo ur and water, as used in the army. Simple and certain. Ibid ---Diphtheria A Gargle for Diphtheria If threatened with diphtheria, gargle the throat at once with lemon juice, swall owing a little of it also. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manu al, c. 1899 ---Dropsy It's interesting to note the medical use of the dock plant in Australia in forme r times, among the common folk. Not only was it used in dropsy cases but as the basis of poultices and to relieve nettle stings. A very old folk belief declares that where nettles grow there also grows the dock: one of many examples of prov ident Nature ensuring that, having hurt, it is ready to heal. [Insert pic p062] I have no evidence that snails were used for folk-medicinal purposes W Australia , although they were a common ingredient of recipes against gout, whooping-cough and warts in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries. An Excellent Method to Cure the Dropsy (Old English) Take a good quantity of black snails, stamp them well with bay-salt, and lay to the hollow of the feet, putting fresh twice a day; take likewise a handful of sp earmint and wormwood, bruise them, and put them in a quart of cream, which boil till it comes to an oil; then strain and anoint those parts which are swelled. T ake off the tops of green broom, which, after you have dried in an oven, burn up on a clean hearth to ashes, which mingle very well with a quart of white-wine, l et it stand all night to settle, and in a morning drink half a pint of the clear est; at four in the afternoon, and at night going to bed, do the same. Continue laying the poultice to your feet, and drinking the white-wine for three weeks to gether: this method has been often used with success. E. Smith, The Compleat Hou sewife, 1753

Dock Roots for Dropsy We lived in the country. My mother reared twelve children, and we never had a do ctor, except when my father had dropsy. The doctor gave him only three days to l ive. Mother went out and dug up some dock roots; she boiled them and gave my fat her the water to drink-and he lived for twenty years after! My sister also was c ured of dropsy by dock roots, which then grew wild in many parts of the country. Mrs E. J. of Brunswick (V), in a letter to the Editor An Excellent Medicine for the Dropsy (Old English) Take of the leaves that grow upon the stem or stalk of the artichoke, bruise them in a stone mortar, then strain them thro' a fine cloth, and put to each pint of the juice a pint of Madeira wine; take four or five spoonfuls the first thing in the morning, and the same quantity going to bed, shaking the bottle well every time you use it. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife 1753 To Cure a Dropsy Dropsy, if to be cured at all, is cured by foxglove and broom in small quantitie s, to be used in the manner of tea; persevere with a wineglassful three times a day. Invaluable. Try it. Golden Recipes: Knowledge it Power, n-d. (19th century) ---Dysentery A Cure for the Bloody-Flux [Dysentery] Take some garlick, press out a spoonful or two, warm it pretty hot, then dip a d ouble rag in it, lay it upon the navel, let it lie till it is cold; then repeat it two or three times, it cures immediately. By this I cured a gentleman, who ha d tried several other things without success. S.C. Quoted by E. Smith in The Com pleat Housewife, 1753 An Old Bush Remedy for Diarrhoea and Dysentery For diarrhoea or dysentery, our pioneering forbears had frequent recourse to the bloodwood tree. The reddish gum which exudes from it, when swallowed in suffici ent quantity, was claimed to be most effective-much too effective, some folk sai d. B.C. of Mackay (Q), in a letter to the Editor ---The Ears Tingling Ears ... there is a well-known superstition that a tingling of the right {ear) is luc ky, denoting that a friend is speaking well of one; a tingling of the left imply ing the opposite. This notion differs according to the locality, as in some plac es it is the tingling of the left ear which denotes the friend, and the tingling of the right ear the enemy. Shakespeare, in Much Ado about Nothing (Act iii, sc . I), makes Beatrice say to Ursula and Hero, who had been talking of her, 'What fire is in mine ears?' in allusion, it is generally supposed, to this popular fa ncy, which is old as the time of Pliny, who says, 'When our ears tingle someone is talking of us in our absence.' Sir Thomas Browne also ascribes the idea to th e belief in guardian angels, who touch the right or left ear according as the co

nversation is favourable or not to the person. The Scotch peasantry have an omen called the 'death-bell'-a tingling in the ears which is believed to announce so me friend's death. Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 An 'Unfailing Remedy' for Earache An unfailing remedy is to take a pinch of black pepper, tie it up in a little bi t of cotton batting, dip it in sweet oil, and insert into the ear. Tie a flannel bandage over the head to keep it warm. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The (Australian) H ousehold Manual, c. 1899 ---Eating Lore A Bad Omen Many consider it unlucky to shake hands across the table; and there is also an o ld superstition mentioned by Grose, that, in eating, to miss the mouth and let t he food fall is a bad omen, betokening approaching sickness. Rev. T. F. Thiselto n Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Eczema Sheep Wash for Eczema I personally know a bad case of eczema that is entirely cured by this simple rem edy: Dilute a quantity of MacDougall's Sheep Wash with boiling water - not too strong at first. Strengthen or reduce as found necessary - about a tablespoonful to a quart to begin with. Apply softly with piece of flannel. Use a fresh piece of fl annel for each wholesale treatment. Extract from a recipe book (c. 1850) kept by a family living at Bacchus Marsh (V ), sent to the Editor by a descendant of this family. To Cure Eczema Dab the affected part with diluted phenyle. First try a small teaspoonful to 2 p int of water; if it stings add more water. Even after it gets well it should be continued for a week or so; should be done several times a day, according to sev erity of complaint. Some very bad cases have been completely cured by this treat ment, both with adults and children. 'Nana. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Bo ok, 1930 To Cure Weeping Eczema We have been told a lot about this, and it has always proved a good remedy. It ay have to be taken for three months, always three times a day, in a bad case. nglish brooklime [the Water Pimpernel herb, 1 tablespoonful, steeped in cup of oiling water, till cold, then thoroughly strained. A wine-glassful to be taken alf an hour before meals. The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 ---Epilepsy m E b h

Old English Charm-Cures for Epilepsy The remedies for this terrible disorder are extremely curious, and in most cases vary in different localities. One, however, very popular charm is a ring made f rom a piece of silver money collected at the offertory. A correspondent of Chamb ers' 'Book of Days' tells us that when he was a boy a person 'came to his father (a clergyman) and asked for a "sacramental shilling", i.e. one out of the alms collected at the Holy Communion, to be made into a ring and worn as a cure for e pilepsy'. In the North of England 'a sacramental piece', as it is usually called , is the sovereign remedy for this complaint. Thirty pence are to be begged of t hirty poor widows. They are then to be carried to the church minister, for which he is to give the applicant a half-crown piece from the communion alms. After b eing 'walked with nine times up and down the church aisle', the piece is then to have a hole drilled in it, and to be hung round the neck by a ribbon. It has be en suggested that these widows' pence may have some reference to the widow's mit e which was so estimable in the eyes of Christ. According to one notion, persons afflicted with epileptic fits are supposed to be bewitched, and die following e xtraordinary remedy is sometimes resorted to for their cure. [Insert pic p068] A quart bottle is filled with pins, and placed in front of the fire until the pi ns are red-hot. As soon as this takes place it is supposed they will prick the h eart of the witch, who to avoid the pain caused by the red-hot pins will release her victim from the suffering she has imposed upon him. This mode of disenchant ment seems to have been of common occurrence; and sometimes, when old houses are under repair, bottles full of pins are found secreted in out-of-the-way places. Another remedy is for the patient to creep, head foremost, down three pairs of stairs, three times a day, for three successive days. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---The Eyes This 18th century anecdote, from Glenbervie, appeals to me: 'Lord Stafford had l ong had a weakness in his sight which seemed approaching fast to blindness, and among the other more common prescriptions was told by his physician that he must strictly abstain from all conjugal intercourse with his wife. This requirement he had adhered to for more than a twelvemonth when, notwithstanding, her Ladyshi p proved with child.' To Cure Blindness when the Cause proceeds from within the Eye (An Old English Re cipe) Take a double handful of the top leaves of salary {celery), and a spoonful of sa lt; pound them together, and when it is pounded make it into a poultice, and put it on the party's contrary hand-wrist (that is, if the right eye is bad, put it to the left wrist) and repeat it for about three or four times, but put on fres h once in twenty-four hours. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 For Inflamed Eyes For Inflammation of the eyes bathe them in boiled milk, with a white poppy in it . Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. (19th century) An Invaluable Remedy for Sore Eyes, Granulation, &c. Drop, very carefully, 1 drop of castor oil into the eye before going to bed at n ight. Repeat every alternate night till cured. This is an invaluable remedy. The

oil should be dropped from a quill into the outer angle of the eye. Mrs Theo. P . Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, C. 1899 English Superstitions Concerning the Eyes In many places we are told that 'it's a good thing to have meeting eyebrows, as such a person will never know trouble', although, curious to say, on the Contine nt quite a different significance is attributed to this peculiarity. In Greece, for instance, it is held as an omen that the man is a vampire, and in Denmark an d Germany it is said to indicate that he is a werewolf. In China, also, there is a proverb that 'people whose eyebrows meet can never expect to attain the digni ty of a minister of state'. There can be no doubt that, according to the general idea, meeting eyebrows are not considered lucky .... Again, the itching of the right eye is considered a lucky omen, an idea that is very old, and may be traced as far back as Theocritus, who says: 'My right eye itches now, I shall see my love.' According to the antiquary Grose, however, who collected together so many of the superstitions prevalent in his day, 'When the right eye itches, the party affec ted will shortly cry; if the left, they will laugh'. The power of fascination ha s generally been considered to be a peculiar quality of the eye, a notion by no means obsolete, and numerous charms have been resorted to for counteracting its influence . . . . It was not very long ago that a curious case of this superstition was brought be fore the guardians of the Shaftesbury Union, in which an applicant for relief st ated his inability to work because he had been 'overlooked' by his sister-in-law . Although his wife had resorted for help to a wise woman, yet she was unable to remove the spell under which he lay, and thus the unfortunate man, incapable of labour, applied for relief, which he did not obtain. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Dome stic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 Bush Treatment for Sore Eyes The native (Aboriginal) mothers used to squirt milk into their children's eyes, and this seemed to neutralize the infection. When a fly bites you in the eye, as is common in the bush, try this simple cure: spit on your index finger, throw your head back, and rub the spittle slowly rou nd the eye. Do this two or three times. It has often been proved effective, and in many instances takes away both the pain and the risk of infection. Bill Harne y's Cook Book, 1969 Blight in the Eye This is common in Australia, being caused by the fine particles of sand in the a tmosphere at particular seasons. It is disfiguring, but not painful. A little ca lomel is the best remedy, taken internally. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1 853 Tea Recipes for the Eyes Stye on the ith boiling nd the stye ch as Epsom Eyelid.-Put a teaspoonful of black tea in a tiny bag, just moisten w water, and apply as a poultice, pretty warm. Keep it on all night, a should be gone in the morning. Take a dose of purgative medicine, su salts, with a squeeze of lemon in it.

To strengthen the Eyes: -Bathe them with cold tea, or cold water with a little E

psom salts dissolved in it. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Man ual, c. 1899 Sandy-Blight in the Far West Sandy-blight is an inflammation of the eyes, which unless properly and reasonabl y promptly treated may end in blindness. It is supposed to be due to the swingin g changes in the temperature which at certain seasons of the year varies to the extent of 50 or 60 degrees between noon and midnight. One wakes with eyelids col d as ice. A little after sunrise they are hot as fire. Imaginary grains of sand are in the eyes. The slightest muscular movement causes excruciating pain. The p oints of millions of pins prick the eyeballs. In a short time one is blind. In those days [c. late 19th century] the cure was almost as painful as the disea se. The lids were turned inside out and rubbed with nitrate of silver. When I go t my only attack, I had the luck to be within forty miles of a doctor. My black boy, Billy, led me blindfolded on my horse to Roe-bourne, and by some miracle we covered the ground inside three hours: William Lambden Owen, Cossack Gold, 1933 A Bad Case of Sandy Blight In 1894 some packers passed through on their way to Halls Creek [WA]. They campe d at the Yellow Water-hole {NT) and at night the blacks threw spears into their mosquito nets, fortunately without killing or maiming anyone. A bit later their experience proved useful to me when I was camped on Armstrong Creek, twenty mile s west of the holes. The blacks stole up one night and threw a regular shower of spears into my net but hit only my packsaddle. I had made my bed in the grass a short distance away after rigging the net as usual. One incident gleams brightly amid the record of fatalities. Shortly after Nat Bu chanan had opened up the track, Billy Day came that way, and arriving at the Yel low Water-holes where the blacks were particularly bad realized that he was in f or a severe attack of sandy blight, Before he became quite blind he tied his hal ter ropes, packsaddle surcingles and bridle reins together, and fixing them from tree to tree made a guide rope between his camp and the water so that he would be able to fill his bucket. Fortunately, he had a bottle of Clarke's Eye Lotion with him, that grand old bush remedy. Ten days later when his eyes improved he b rought his horses back to camp and hobbled them. He saw signs that the blacks we re about and was amazed that they had not speared him. It could only be assumed that, seeing the guide rope, they realized his utter helplessness and left him a lone. William Linklater and Lynda Tapp, Gather No Moss, 1968 A Strange Old Charm against a Sty The Rev. Thiselton Dyer's comment on English folk customs concerning sties is of interest: 'To prevent or cure this disorder, known in some places as "west", it is customary on the first sight of the new moon to seize a black cat by the .ta il, and after pulling from it one hair, to rub the tip nine times over the pustu le. As this charm, however, is often attended with sundry severe scratches, a go ld ring has been substituted, and is said to be equally beneficial .... 'Earrings are considered a good remedy for sore eyes; and in districts where the teasle [the teasel or teazle plant, used in raising the nap in cloth] is grown for use in the manufacture of broadcloth, a preservative against them is found i n the water which collects in the hollow cups of that plant. Pure rain-water is reported to be another infallible remedy.' To Clear the Eyes (An Old English Recipe) Take the white of hens-dung, dry it very well, and beat it to powder; sift, and

blow it into the eyes when the party goes to bed. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewi fe, 1753 ---Eucalyptus The medicinal value of the leaves of many eucalyptus species was known to the ea rly Australian settlers, largely through their contacts with the Aborigines. In the latter half of the 19th century eucalyptus oil was regarded throughout the c ountry as a general cure-all. Mary Gilmore wrote: 'For every kind of wound made, father used eucalyptus leaves as taught by the blacks. Leaves were bound over b listers, burns, or scalds, and when in 1880 one of my brothers had his thumb nea rly severed by an axe-cut, leaves bound on made such a good job of the healing, that, though father had had to put in seven stitches, when a surgeon at last saw the hand he asked who had been the doctor, as he said no doctor could have done better. Again as to aboriginal practice-once when I was scalded my mother wante d to cut the skin and let out the water, but my old mammy would not permit it. S he said the water was needed till a new skin began to form, and that a scar woul d be the result if the blister were broken. When the time came to let the water run, she again pushed my mother aside, took a very fine splinter of eucalyptus w ood, and, inserting the point under the bare surface of the skin at a distance f rom the burn, pushed it in so skillfully that I felt almost no pain. In that way the water drained slowly out as from a seton; the top remained unbroken and I h ave no scar.' More Recollections, 1935. ---The Face The face maps out a pretty large area of folk-medical practice and superstition. We can only touch on a very few aspects here. To cure a pimpled Face, and Sweeten the Blood (Old English) Take sena [senna] one ounce, put it in a small stone-pot, and pour a quart or mo re of boiling water on it, then fill it up with prunes; cover with paper, and se t it in the oven with household-bread; take every day, one, two, three, or more, of the prunes and liquor, according as it operates; continue this always, or at least half a year. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Another to take away Pimples Take wheat-flour mingled with honey and vinegar, and lay on the pimples going to bed. Ibid To Make Pimples Disappear If two apples are eaten the first thing in the morning for six weeks every Pimpl e will disappear. 'Armadaler'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 Burning Cheeks '... we find,' says Thiselton Dyer in his Domestic Folk-Lore (c. 1881) , that th e cheek is not without its quota of folk-lore; for, like the ear, nose, and eye, it is considered ominous when one's cheek itches. According to Grose, "If the r ight cheek burns, someone is speaking to the person's advantage; if the left, to their disadvantage." One may still occasionally hear the following charm uttere d by a person whose cheek suddenly burns:

"Right Cursed If she If she But if ----

cheek! left cheek! why do you burn? be she that doth me any harm; be a maid, let her be staid; be a widow, long let her mourn; it be my own true love-burn, cheek, burn."

Fatness and Over-Weight A Recipe for Over-Weight Stout Persons.-For stout persons to keep down burdensome fat, use a wine-glassfu l of the best Holland's gin two or three times a week, and avoid the use of much bacon or bread; or, simply from twenty to thirty crushed nettle seeds, taken ni ght and morning daily, is the best remedy for stout people, which will prevent b urdensome fat surrounding the kidneys and stopping the heart. Tried with good re sults. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---The Feet A Way to Avoid a Quarrelsome Temper Feet-to Wash.-The neglect of washing the feet is often visited by a quarrelsome .temper, and other bodily complaints. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. { 19th century} Old English Superstitions Concerning the Feet The itching of the foot has been supposed to indicate that its owner will shortl y undertake a strange journey; while that unpleasant sensation popularly styled 'the foot going to sleep', is often charmed away by crossing the foot with saliv a. When the division between the toes is incomplete, and they are partially join ed, they are called 'twin toes' and are said to bring good luck. Rev. T. F. This elton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 Perspiring Feet The unpleasant odour from perspiring feet may be prevented by sprinkling oatmeal in the socks, as used in the army; or sprinkle bran in the socks frequently. Tr y either with good effect. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th centur y] An Old Charm for Feet 'Going to Sleep' Thiselton Dyer commented: 'The belief in the curative powers of the form of the cross still holds its sway in the popular mind, and in the case f spasms, or that painful state of the feet in which they are said "to sleep", it is used under a n impression that it allays the pain.' ---Garlic Leeks and Garlick (An Old Welsh Rhyme) Eat leekes in Lide and ramsins in May, And all the year after physicians may play.

[Lide is March, the loud or roaring month, and ramsins are wild garlic.] Quoted in V. Day Sharman, Folk Tales of Devon, 1952 To make Syrup of Garlick (Old English) Take two heads of garlick, peel it clean, and boil it in a pint of water a prett y while; then change your water and boil it till the garlick is tender; then str aining it off, add a pound of double-refin'd sugar to it, and boil it till it is a thick syrup; skim it well, and keep it for use; take a spoonful in a morning fasting, another last at night, for a short-breath. E. Smith, The Compleat House wife, 1753 Garlic against Bush Ghosts The elders tell no tales now of an old woman crossing a field, and when you look ed again there was only a hare sitting there washing its face. You can be an old woman in perfect safety today; you can keep as many black cats as you like, and no one regards it as a sign of witchcraft; you can say the word gipsy and not s hiver. Garlic has become merely a flavouring Vegetable, which no one needs in th is our children's time to hang round a child's neck, or fasten to a door or wind ow, to keep blood-sucking ghosts away . . . But when I was a child ghosts still walked, and spectres haunted the cross-roads. Mary Gilmore, Old Days: Old Ways, 1934 A Receipt for the Croup Mothers suggested the following hints for children suffering from croup: - Procu re some garlic and skin it clean. Then cut up and place in a cup or glass and co ver it well with pure olive oil, and allow to stand 24 hours. Then give the chil dren small doses of it. I think half a teaspoonful should be enough for the baby at a dose. 'Trafite', Trafalgar (V.). Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1 930 ---Goanna Oil A Valuable Oil But there was as well as the Indian oil, our own goanna oil. The black's method was to keep it in the form of fat as long as possible. The white man drew out th e oil by means of heat; the black told him that this was wrong as the heat lesse ned the restorative quality of the oil; but that if it had to be drawn to put it in the sun and let natural heat run it out. But even this did not retain the fu ll value as keeping it in its own tissue did. In any case, they said the fresher it was used after being killed, the better. Father kept it in its own tissue fo r his saws. The smell was always against it as a human application, but I should say that, when fresh, one got the same amount of vitamin through the skin from it as from cod-liver oil. Mary Gilmore, More Recollections, 1935 ---Gout When gout is mentioned, I tend to think automatically of Gillray's frightening c artoon of 1799, with its suggestion of rich living and over-indulgence. I think that for most people gout is almost invariably associated with the club, and the passing round of the port. But the disease is much more democratic in its patro nage than that; and the common man evolved charms and specifics to cope with its

distressing effects. 'For gout', Golden Recipes advised, 'bind the plant ground ash on the afflicted part'. 'A Sure Cure for Gout' A clove of garlic eaten night and morning is said to be a sure cure for gout. Mr s Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 Old Remedies for the Gout The periodical attacks of this disease have from the earliest times been subject ed to the influence of charms, blackberries being considered by the Greeks a goo d specific. Culpeper has bequeathed to us a curious remedy. He says, 'Take an ow l, pull off her feathers, and pull out her guts; salt her well for a week, then put her into a pot, and stop it close, and put her into an oven, that so she may be brought into a mummy, which, being beat into powder and mixed with boar's gr ease, is an excellent remedy for gout, anointing the grieved place by the fire.' The germander speedwell has been esteemed highly efficacious, and the Emperor C harles V. is reported to have derived benefit from it. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer , Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---The Hair An Old English Ointment to cause Hair to grow Take of boars-grease two ounces, ashes of burnt bees, ashes of southernwood [sce nted wormwood, Artemesia abrotanum], juice of white Lilly-root, oil of sweet alm onds, of each one drachm; six drachms of pure musk; and according to art make an ointment of these; and the day before the full moon shave the place, anointing it every day with this ointment; it will cause hair to grow where you will have it. Oil of sweet almonds, or spirit of vinegar, is very good to rub the head wit h, if the hair grows thin. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 A Dandruff Cure The most efficient cure for this complaint is kerosene and water in equal parts, well shaken up to mix the oil and water, and applied with the open hand and wel l rubbed in. For the first few days it should be applied morning and night. As t he dandruff disappears it can be applied less frequently, and later just occasio nally. It helps if the head is washed frequently. It is beneficial to the hair i n many ways, and keeps it from turning grey if used before greyness appears. It also destroys nits if applied to children's heads. As it makes the hair inflamma ble care should be taken to keep children from fire or open lights. The Leader S pare Corner Book, 1930 Another for the Same 'Cornerite' says: - The following is a good cure for dandruff, and it is also a good tonic for the hair. I used it every night for months when I was letting my hair grow, and it cured me of dandruff. Take one packet and a half of sage, and dissolve it in one pint of boiling water. When cold, strain into a bottle, and b rush into the scalp every night. It is best to brush it over a bath, as it stain s the walls. It is not a dye, but an old Indian remedy. Ibid A Brandy Hair Tonic for Grey Hair (An Australian Recipe) 1 dessertspoonful salt. 4 dessertspoonfuls good brandy

Put in a bottle and shake for 5 minutes. Although a sediment of salt will be in the bottom of the bottle, it is quite ready for use, and must not be shaken agai n. Rub well into roots twice a week. 'Kate'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner B ook, 1931 [Insert pic p084] To Prevent the Hair Falling Off Anxiety will cause the hair to fall off. When the hair falls off, damp it freque ntly with sage tea; or, equal parts of rosemary, boxwood, and marshmallows, to a quart of boiling water, and when cold used as a bath, prevents the hair from fa lling off, and good to cure baldness. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [ 19th century] Popular Notions concerning Hair Thiselton ng to the will, to espeare's , says: Dyer, the English antiquary, writing in the early 1880s, noted: 'Passi hair, there is a popular notion that sudden fright or violent distress use Sir Walter Scott's words, "blanch at once the hair". Thus, in Shak 1. Henry IV. (Act ii., sc. 4), Falstaff, in his speech to Prince Henry

"Thy father's beard is turned white with the news." Although this has been styled "a whimsical notion", yet in its support various i nstances of its occurrence have from time to time been recorded. The hair of Lud wig of Bavaria, for example, it is said, became almost suddenly white as snow on his learning the innocence of his wife, whom he had caused to be put to death o n a suspicion of infidelity; and the same thing, we are told, happened to Charle s I. in a single night, when he attempted to escape from Carisbrooke Castle. A s imilar story is told of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, when her flight from F rance was checked at Varennes. According to another notion, excessive fear has o ccasionally caused the hair to stand on end, a belief which Shakespeare has reco rded .... The sudden loss of hair is considered unlucky, being said to prognosti cate the loss of children, health, or property; whereas many consider it imprude nt to throw it away, or to leave the smallest scrap lying about. One reason assi gned for this notion is that if hair is left about, birds might build their nest s with it, a fatal thing for the person from whose head it has fallen. Thus, sho uld a magpie use it for any such purpose-by no means an unlikely circumstance-th e person's death will be sure to happen "within a year and a day". Some say, aga in, that hair should never be burnt, but only buried, a superstition founded on a tradition that at the resurrection its owner will come in search of it. On the other hand, it is customary with some persons to throw a piece of their hair in to the fire, drawing various omens from the way it burns. Should it gradually sm oulder away, it is an omen of death; but its burning brightly is a sign of longe vity, and the brighter the flame the longer the life. In Devonshire, too, if the hair grows down on the forehead and retreats up the head above the temples, it is considered an indication that the person will have a long life.' ---The Hands For Chapped Hands 'Tasmanian Reader', Piper's River, recommends mixing together some warm beeswax and castor oil. It will set like an ointment, and if rubbed well into hands each night, and a pair of old gloves is worn, it will soon heal the chaps. The Leade

r Spare Corner Book, 1930 For Jammed Fingers Plunge the wounded fingers into water as hot as can be borne, for some minutes; then bind up in a poultice of bread and water. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The (Austra lian) Household Manual, c. 1899 To Remove a Stubborn Splinter An old sleeper-cutters' method of treating a stubborn splinter in the finger was to soak .the digit in very hot water, thus softening the flesh. The splinter wa s then easy to remove. N.F.C. of Pascoe Vale (V), in a letter to the Editor Superstitions Concerning the Hand ... the hand has been honoured with a very extensive folk-lore, and the followin g extract from an old writer shows that nearly every peculiarity of the hand has been made emblematical of some personal trait of character. Thus, we are told: - 'A great thick hand signifies one not only strong, but stout; a little slender hand, one not only weak, but timorous; a long hand and long fingers betoken a m an not only apt for mechanical artifice, but liberally ingenious. Those short, o n the contrary, note a fool, and fit for nothing; a hard brawny hand signifies o ne dull and rude; a soft hand, one witty, but effeminate; a hairy hand, one luxu rious. Long joints signify generosity; yet if they be thick withal, one not so i ngenious. The often clapping and folding of the hands note covetousness; and the ir much moving in speech, loquacity. Short and fat fingers mark a man out as int emperate and silly; but long and lean, as witty. If his fingers crook upward, th at shows him liberal; if downward, niggardly ...' Among other omens, we are told that the itching of the right hand signifies that it will shortly receive money , whereas if the left hand be the one to itch, it is a sign that money will befo re very many days have to be paid away. In Suffolk the peasants have the followi ng rhyme on the subject: 'If your hand itches, You're going to take riches; Rub it on wood, Sure to come good; Rub it on iron, Sure to come flying; Rub it on brass, Sure to come to pass; Rub it on steel, Sure to come a deal; Rub it on tin, Sure to come agin.' A moist hand is said to denote an amorous constitution, and in 2 Henry IV. (Act i., sc. 2), the Lord Chief Justice enumerates a dry hand among the characteristi cs of age and debility. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 Disease and the Dead Hand On the subject of corpses and diseases, Thiselton Dyer's Domestic Folklore has t hese interesting comments: 'A superstition ... which we must not omit to mention , is the practice of rubbing with a dead hand for the purpose of taking away dis ease, instances of which, even now-a-days, are of occasional occurrence. Mr Hend erson mentions a case that happened about the year 1853. The wife of a pitman at Castle Eden Colliery, who was suffering from a wen in the neck, went alone, acc ording to advice given her by a "wise woman", and lay all night in the out-house

, with the hand of a corpse on her wen. She had been assured that the hand of a suicide was an infallible cure. The shock, at any rate, to her nervous system fr om that terrible night was so great that she did not rally for some months, and eventually she died from the wen. As a further specimen of this incredible super stition, we may quote the following case, which happened some years ago in an Ea stern county. A little girl of about eight years of age had from birth been trou bled with scrofulous disease, and had been reared with great difficulty. Her fri ends consulted the "wise man" of the neighbourhood, who told the mother that if she took the girl and rubbed her naked body all over with the hand of a dead man she would be cured. The experiment was tried, and the poor little girl was near ly killed with fright, and, of course, made no progress whatever towards health. ' 'Many of our readers are, no doubt, acquainted with the famous "dead man's hand" , which was formerly kept at Bryn Hall, in Lancashire. It is said to have, been the hand of Father Arrowsmith, a priest who, according to some accounts, was put to death for his religion in the time of William III. Preserved with great care in a white silken bag, this hand was resorted to by many diseased persons, and wonderful cures are reported to have been effected by this saintly relic. Thus, we are told of a woman who, afflicted with small-pox, had this dead hand in bed with her every night for six weeks; and of a poor lad who was rubbed with it for the cure of scrofulous sores. It is, indeed, generally supposed that practices of this kind are rare and of exceptional occurrence, but they are far more commo n than might be imagined, although not recorded in newspapers.' ---Hay Fever To Relieve Hay Fever When the complaint first shows itself, try the effect of rest and quiet for a fe w days, and, if possible, change of air. Keep the bowels gently opened with a sa line draught in the mornings, and live on a light diet. Take a teaspoonful of Pa ragoric [a tincture of opium], or a dose of Kaye's Compound Essence, or any good cough mixture, at bed-time for a few nights. Moisten the nostrils with Eucalypt us, or inhale it in steam. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manu al, c. 1899 ---Headache To Relieve a Headache (Old Australian) Very hot water applied to the back of the neck with a folded towel, at the same time placing the feet in a hot bath, will often relieve headache. P.W.M.U. Cooke ry Book of Victoria, 1904 For a Headache (Australian Bush Cure) Finely grind the charcoal from your fire, mix with a teaspoon of water and drink it. Bill Harney's Cook Book, 1960 [Insert pic p090] To Cure a Headache (Australian) Try putting a little salt on the tongue, and washing it down with a drink of war m water. It is the best cure we have found. Some people think it will snake them

vomit, but it will not. It cures the headache almost as soon as you drink it. ' Lilybet'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 An Old English Superstition Concerning Headache Thiselton Dyer quotes an old English folk belief with regard to a cause of heada che: 'No hair, either cut or combed from the head, must be thrown carelessly awa y, lest some bird should find it and carry it off, in which case the person's he ad would ache during all the time that the bird was busy working the spoil into its nest.' Dyer adds: 'In some counties the common corn-poppy is called "headache", from th e cephalalgic tendency of the scent.' ---Hiccup The 18th-century English high-living rake, John Mytton, must surely have attempt ed the most astonishing cure for hiccup (or hiccough, if you prefer it) in histo ry. For, says T. H. White, 'to cure the hiccoughs, he set light to his own night shirt, and burned himself to death. It was to prove that he was not afraid.' An Old English Cure for the Hickup Take .three or four preserved damsons [small, dark plums] in your mouth at a tim e, and swallow them by degrees. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 A Charm-Cure for Hiccup Here is a simple example of a spoken charm. It cures hiccups: Hiccup, hiccup, Rise up right up, Three drops in a cup Are good for the hiccup. Three sips must then be drunk from the far side of the cup. I have often heard p eople advocating this part of the cure, but have never heard them complete it wi th the rhyme. Dorothy Jacob, Cures and Curses, 1967 To Speedily Cure the Hiccup Hiccup is speedily cured by placing the fingers in the ears whilst drinking free ly of cold water; or, take a pinch of snuff. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] For the Hiccough Take a teaspoonful of granulated sugar moistened with pure vinegar. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Hops For the 'Best of Health' Hops, Invaluable. - Less medicine would be used if the value of hops were more k nown. Use a quarter of an ounce to a pint of boiling water, and all the better w ith a teaspoonful of Epsom salts in it; take a wineglassful in the morning, whic

h will not only restore, but will keep anyone in the best of health at little ex pense. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] Hop Drink Hop drink gives a cheerful mind, rich blood, and good digestion. Choose the gold colour. Ibid A Useful Remedy for Blood Disorders Hops used as tea is a valuable remedy for all impurities of the blood. Kandy Koo la Cook Book, n.d. ---Insanity Pork and Insanity A Norfolk superstition warns persons against eating the marrow of pork lest they should go mad. Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Jaundice Useful Pills For jaundice, a quarter-pound of Venice soap, made into moderate sized pills wit h eighteen drops of the oil of aniseed; three of these pills to be taken night a nd morning. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] Old English Cures for Jaundice Many of the remedies recommended for this complaint are not of a very agreeable kind, as, for instance, the following one mentioned by a correspondent of Notes and Queries .... as having been resorted to in a Dorsetshire parish, where the p atient was ordered to eat nine lice on a piece of bread and butter. One popular charm in days gone by, and certainly not of a very refined character, was known as the cure by transplantation, and consisted in burying in a dunghill an odd nu mber of cakes made of ashes and other ingredients. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Do mestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Kerosene The Coming of Kerosene in the 1860s Of course in addition to the native remedies there were others the bush used. On e was what was known as Indian oil, brought in small carefully preserved bottles by men who came here from the United States of America for the prospecting. A m an would carry such a bottle around his neck on a string so that it would lie co ntinually on his chest, and we would be told that it was the most valuable thing , that the Red Indians had known of it for hundreds of years, and that the India ns would travel any distance to barter their best furs for it, for no one who co uld get it would be without it. Its use was for rheumatism, and all sorts of oth er things. It was also called rock oil, and we were informed that it floated on the surface of the waters in certain places, whence it was recovered. Later on I heard it called Drake oil, and was much bewildered to know why it was not calle

d duck oil, as drakes were ducks. Today we call it kerosene, and it was because of its long Indian (and white American) use that it became and still is the Aust ralian cure-all of the bush. Drake oil was not its designation for very long, as refining and market brought in the trade word kerosene. But Drake was the first man who struck oil in the United States, so the oil was called after him. And s o valuable has it been to the world that in Titusville, Pennsylvania, a monument was raised to him and on his epitaph reads: Colonel E. L. Drake ... Founder of the Petroleum Industry. The Friend of Man. (Mary Gilmore, More Recollections.) ---Liniments An Excellent Liniment Mustard Liniment.-Its mode of preparation is to put an ounce of good mustard in a bottle containing a pint of spirits of turpentine, and to shake it occasionall y for two or three days; then, when quite settled, pour off the liquid, and that only, apply it until the part is felt to smart tolerably sharply; do not break the skin; rub again, if necessary, in three or four days. It is considered an ex cellent remedy for lumbago and chilblains. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 18 53 An Australian Liniment One dessertspoonful flour, 1 dessertspoonful honey, enough new milk to make into a paste, 5 drops of turpentine. The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 ---Liver Complaints For a Liver Complaint Liver Complaint.-Which thousands suffer from, should use this. -Boil gently a qu arter of a pound of stone brimstone {sulphur) in a quart of water, when cold bot tle it, and take a wineglassful twice a day; those subject to this complaint cou ld have no better remedy; or, another active remedy for liver complaint is dande lion coffee, simply made from the dried root, roasted and ground, and used the s ame as coffee. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] For a Sluggish Liver Equal parts of hops and dandelion tea is a cure for sluggish liver; or the free use of agrimony {a genus of the Rosaceae, used in herb teas strengthens the slug gish liver, to be used as tea. Ibid ---Lockjaw For Cases of Lockjaw Lockjaw (Dr Chase's method). *1. To prevent lockjaw. As soon as a wound which may cause lockjaw is received, get a light stick, or use a knife handle, and tap the open wound gently. Do not stop for the pain, but continue until it bleeds freely and becomes perfectly num

b. This point reached, you are safe, but not before. Then protect the wound from dust. *2. Or smoke the wound in wool smoke for 20 minutes. *3. If lockjaw has set in, pour a little warm turpentine into the wound, and rel ief will immediately follow. [Insert pic p100] Note:-It should be borne in mind that almost any wound may cause lockjaw, as tha t is caused by a germ; therefore the safest remedy in all cases, is to apply war m turpentine at once, and keep the wound covered. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Aus tralian] Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Longevity and Ageing 'There was a belief', says T. H. White in his fascinating book about 18th centur y England, The Age of Scandal, 'that the breath of young women might be helpful in prolonging life. According to Mr Wadd, one physician actually took lodgings i n a girls' boarding-school for this purpose. "I am myself," wrote Philip Thickne sse in 1779, "turned of sixty, and in general, though I have lived in various cl imates, and suffered severely both in body and mind, yet having always partaken of the breath of young women, wherever they lay in my way, I feel none of the in firmities, which so often strike the eyes and ears in this great city of sicknes s {Bath), by men many years younger than myself".' The Onset of Age Old age in woman sets in at 53, in men about the 60th year. At these particular ages of life, when symptoms of any kind appear, they cannot be too quickly atten ded to. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. {19th century] Old Welsh Prescriptions for a Long Life A cold mouth and warm feet will live long. Suppers kill more than the Physicians of Myddfai can cure. A light dinner, and less supper, sound sleep, and a long l ife. If thou desirest to die, eat cabbage in August. Prescriptions of the Physicians of Myddfai, quoted in Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales o f Wales, 1947 ---Measles 'Crooke' for Measles (An Irish Cure) Thiselton Dyer noted in his Domestic Folk-Lore (c. 1881): 'In the quarterly retu rn of the marriages, births, and deaths registered in the provinces, &c., in Ire land, published in October, 1878, we find the following extraordinary cure for m easles, administered with what results will be seen: "Sixty-three cases of measl es appear on the medical relief register for past quarter, but this does not rep resent a third of those affected, the medical officers being only called in when the usual amount of local nostrums had been tried without effect. Every case se en suffered from violent diarrhoea, caused by the administration of a noxious co mpound called crooke. This consists of a mixture of porter, sulphur, and the exc rement of the sheep collected in the fields. Every unfortunate child that showed

any symptom of measles was compelled to drink large quantities of this mixture. All ordinary remedies failed to stop the diarrhoea thus produced, in many cases the children nearly dying from exhaustion." Repulsive as this piece of folk-med icine is, yet it is only one of a most extensive class of the same kind, many be ing most revolting. It is difficult to conceive how either ignorance or supersti tion could tolerate any practice of so senseless and indelicate a nature.' ---Memory (Bad) For bad memory drink sage tea, sweetened to taste. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Moles (Human) Mole Omens Moles ... have generally been thought to denote good or ill-luck from their posi tion on the body. Thus one on the throat is a sign of luck, but one on the left side of the forehead near the hair is just the reverse. Again, a mole on either the chin, ear, or neck is an indication of riches, but one on the breast signifi es poverty. Indeed, if we are to believe the 'Greenwich Fortune-teller', a popul ar chap-book in former years, omens to be drawn from moles are almost unlimited. Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Mortification, or Gangrene For mortification, dust the part with lump sugar or a little bluestone. Golden R ecipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Neuralgia For the Relief of Neuralgia Apply hot dry flannels, as hot a can be borne, or bags of hot salt. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 Some Neuralgia Recipes Neuralgia.-Why suffer such dreadful pain? The simplest and best remedy for neura lgia is to wear well pounded brimstone on the sole of the foot contrary to the p ain side; or cayenne sprinkled on hot flannels affords instant relief to persons troubled with neuralgia; or, very hot hops applied in a bag. Try it at once. Go lden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] Old Scots Charms for Lumbago and Tic-Douloureux In Dundee it is customary, says the Rev. Thiselton Dyer (c. 1881), to wear round the loins as a cure for lumbago a hank of yarn which has been charmed by a wise woman, and girls may be seen with single threads of the same round the head as an infallible specific for tic-douloureux. This latter is a .type of neuralgia a ffecting face and head, and is a most painful affliction.

---The Nose The Value of a Roman Nose On selecting a good adviser and reliable friend look for the Roman nose and larg e hand. Golden Recipes: Knowledge it Power, n.d. [19th century] Folklore of the Nose The itching of the nose, like that of the ears, is not without its signification , denoting that a stranger will certainly appear before many hours have passed b y, in allusion to which Dekker, in his 'Honest Whore', says: - We shall ha' gues ts to-day; my nose itcheth so.' In the north of England, however, if the nose it ches it is reckoned a sign that the person will either be crossed, vexed, or kis sed by a fool; whereas an old writer tells us that 'when a man's nose itcheth it is a signe he shall drink wine'. Many omens, too, are gathered from bleeding of the nose. Thus Grose says, 'One drop of blood from the nose commonly foretells death or a very severe fit of sickness; three drops are still more ominous'; and according to another notion one drop from the left nostril is a sign of good lu ck, and vice versa. Bleeding of the nose seems also to have been regarded as a s ign of love, if we may judge from a passage in Boulster's 'Lectures', published early in .the seventeenth century:-' "Did my nose ever bleed when I was in your company?" and, poor wretch, just as she spake this, to show her true heart, her nose fell a-bleeding.' Again, that bleeding of the nose was looked upon as omino us in days gone by, we may gather from Launcelot's exclamation in the Merchant o f Venice (Act ii, sc. 5 ), 'it was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock'-a superstition to which many of our old wri ters refer. Among further superstitions connected with the nose we may mention o ne in Cornwall, known as 'the blue vein', an illustration of which occurs in Mr Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England', who relates the following little anecd ote: -A fond mother was paying more than ordinary attention to a fine healthy-lo oking child, a boy about three years old. The poor roman's breast was heaving wi th emotion, and she struggled to repress her sighs. Upon inquiring if anything w as really wrong, she said, "The old lady of the house had just told her that the child could not live long because he had a blue vein across his nose".' This pi ece of folk-lore, which caused the anxious mother such distress, is not confined to the West of England, but crops up here and there throughout the country. Rev . T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 [Insert pic p109] ---Nutmeg An Old English Recipe to Stay a Looseness Take a very good nutmeg, prick it full of holes, and toast it on the point of a knife; then boil it in milk till half be consumed; then eat the milk with the nu tmeg powdered in it: in a few times it will stop. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewi fe, 1753 Nutmeg for Boils 'My husband says if those who are troubled with boils will keep a nutmeg in thei r pocket (*) and chew a little about four times a day the boils will disappear,

and they will not be troubled with them again. He proved this himself, as one ti me they troubled him a great deal.' The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 [*] 'In Somerset, {a nutmeg] carried in the pocket is ... a charm against boils, but only if it has been given to the patient by a friend.' E. & M.A. Radford, E ncyclopaedia of Superstitions, revised edn., 1961. Ed. Another Nutmeg Remedy A simple and wonderful cure for boils. Grate a whole nutmeg, add a little sugar, hot water and milk. Take a whole nutmeg for three mornings in succession. If no t cured repeat it in a few days' time. Do not take more than three in succession . I've never known it to fail. 'Helper'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931 ---Ointments and Salves An Old English Ointment for a Burn or Scald Take a pound of hogs-lard, two good handfuls of sheeps-dung, and a good handful of the green bark of the elder, the brown bark being first taken off; boil all t hese to an ointment: you must first take out the fire with sallad-oil, a bit of an onion, and the white of an egg, beaten well together; then anoint with the oi ntment, and in less than a week it will be well. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewif e, 1753 A Valuable Salve Common Ointment.-is one part of white or yellow wax, and two parts of hog's lard or olive oil, melted in a pipkin near the fire. These are used for dressing wou nds and sores, and are spread on lint or linen. The Emigrant's Guide to Australi a, 1853 A Good Ointment (Australian) 1 oz. of lard. 1 oz. of beeswax. 1 oz. of olive oil. Mode. - Melt wax first, then add oil and lard; the lard must not have any salt i n it. Add a little resin if preferred; it makes the ointment harder; but we like it best without resin. It is very good for sore hands, or for cows' teats if th ey are sore or cracked. 'Home Bird'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 193 1 The Best Ointment The best ointment is made from cream buried a day or two in a cloth in the garde n. Golden Recipes: Knowledge it Power, n.d. [19th century For the Piles (An Old English Cure) Anoint the part with ointment of tobacco. This cured an acquaintance of mine, wh o told it me himself. S.C. Quoted in E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Elder Flower Ointment A cooling ointment, generally used when the face and neck have got sun-burnt. Tw

o pounds of fresh elder-flowers are simmered in two pounds of hogs' lard until c risp, and then strained through a sieve. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 A Useful Salve (An Old Australian Recipe) 1/2 lb. beef suet melted in a jar, 1 tablespoonful of castor oil, 1 teaspoonful eucalyptus, 1 teaspoonful boracic powder. Beat all thoroughly. P.W.M.U. Cookery Book of Victoria, 1904 ---Old Wives' Tales and Grandmothers' Home Cures This section might seem to be a little repetitious, considering that so much of the book is taken up with home remedies and folk-medical fallacies. Nevertheless I can think of no better way of illustrating the popular approach to problems o f family health in the Australia of from forty to one hundred years ago than by giving the following personal letters in full. They confirm the over-all picture of the force of custom and the power of belief that have guided the general thi nking in all pioneering communities. This is summed up in such expressions as, ' My grandmother never visited a doctor in her life', 'The old cures certainly did us no harm', and 'With all the wonders of modern science there are no remedies like .the old remedies'. 'A Cure for Everything' When we were young (my brothers, sisters and self) our grandmother lived next do or to us; and she was always consulted when any of us needed medical attention. She had a cure for everything, from the red flannel bandage to the backache kidn ey plaster. When we lost our voices we were given a bowl of hot water, lashed liberally with Friar's Balsam (it's still on the chemists' shelves, this old patent remedy) an d without doubt the inhalation was invariably effective. Eucalyptus, of course, was used in liquid form for rubbing-stiff necks, chest co lds, pains in arms and legs (growing pains?-one seldom hears the term nowadays). Toothache and neuralgia were treated by the application of a swathe of flannel r ound the face. The flannel was saturated with methylated spirit. A very painful toothache received the alcohol treatment-usually whisky (neat), applied direct. A good dose of Epsom salts or castor oil was a panacea for any stomach pains-and woe betide anyone malingering! Castor oil was always associated with a deep blu e-coloured bottle. Warts were burnt off with a caustic stick, if they were of the type that did not vanish of their own accord. But corns, we found, responded only to a good sharp knife. Any pressure on a corn or callous aggravates it; and unless it is remove d, the core will make its presence felt-bigger and better. I have been told that in past generations, it was not uncommon in Ireland for farmers and such to mak e slits in their boots to remove the effect of leather pressing on their corns. Hot packs of salt or linseed were used for persistent aches and pains -the heat probably being the source of the cure. And salt has been used for generations fo r a gargle for sore throats and ulcerated throats. For a 'blood nose' a door key was applied to the back spinal column. Burns were treated by application of raw steak, or alternatively, butter or lard, to the af

fected part. Mrs J.H. of Thornbury (V), in a letter to the Editor Grandmother's Cures I can give you some cures and remedies used by my grandmother, and considered ve ry successful. Corns: The foot had to be warmed well by the fire. Then, taking a candle and lig hting it, my grandmother would allow one drop of the hot tallow to drop on the c orn, giving it a coating to protect the surrounding skin. Then with a needle-sha rp knife point she would carefully bore a small hole in the centre of the corn, until the 'pink', as she termed it, would show. To draw blood was considered an almost certain way to contract blood poisoning. Into the small cavity she would next drop a minute speck of caustic soda. (This was commonly found in all countr y homes, as most people made their own soap.) After placing the soda in the cavi ty, a lighted match was held near the top of the toe, causing the wax to melt, a nd then the wax was drawn across the cavity, leaving the caustic to do its unhol y work. Apparently, Grandma was adept at choosing the right quantity, as she was famous for the number of bad corns she had cured. Boils, infected wounds: A further concoction of hers which had a sound reputatio n in these parts was a salve which she used on boils and badly infected cuts and wounds. There is a small plant which grows on the edge of creeks and around poo ls in the Murtoa district of Victoria. Although it is quite common I do not know its real name. Grandma called it 'brooklime'-a name probably taken from a simil ar plant in England. The plant brows flat, has small radiating serrated leaves, and a little wax-like flower with yellow sheen, at the centre of which is a smal l green knob with coarse protruding stamens of bright yellow colour. The centres of the flowers were collected, ground to a paste with a knife blade, then mixed with an equal quantity of unsalted lard. This salve was especially useful for b oils. For infected wounds, the lard was mixed with an equal part of marrow fat, to help ease the pain and facilitate healing. It certainly did the job. A. H. M. of Murtoa (V), in a letter to the Editor Old-fashioned Remedies From my childhood days I can remember the following cures being used in many cou ntry homes: * * n * * Warts: - Dab on milk thistle juice, or the juice of green figs. Aches and Sprains: - An embrocation of real goanna oil; also a poultice of bra and vinegar. 'Bowel medicine': - An infusion of certain kinds of dock leaves. 'For spring lassitude': - Brimstone and treacle.

[Mrs H. M. of Wangaratta (V), in a letter to the Editor] For Rheumatism Acne, Croup &c. I lived for some years with my grandmother, a pioneering woman, and these were s ome of her home remedies: Rheumatism: - A piece of potato inserted into a suede glove was pinned to a flannel binder, and this was worn at all times while the rheumatism lasted. he potato became rock hard it was considered to be doing its work. This was ed to one teaspoonful of Epsom salts taken with warm tea first thing in the ing. red If t alli morn

Acne and Varicose Ulcers: - Epsom salts again was used in warm water, one tables poonful to a gallon, as a cure (a wash this time) for these complaints.

For Croup, Whooping cough, and any persistent cough: - A cold water compress con sisting of a man's handkerchief, well wrung out, was placed around the throat an d covered with a warm scarf. As an extra, onions were chopped up and put in a pi llowcase and the feet of the patient were placed in this and left for as long as necessary. Severe nose bleeding: - This cure I can personally vouch for. It was nothing mor e than to place the feet of the patient in a basin of water as hot as he could b ear. Of the patent medicines and chemists' preparations she used, I well remember Gre athead's Mixture for colds, Condy's crystals for everything from a gargle to sta ining floor boards, Friar's Balsam, and castor oil for removing warts and as an eye ointment. Mrs P. B, of Loch (V), in a letter to the Editor Old Queensland Memories In the earlier days, when doctors were few and far between, pioneers were oblige d to turn to their own home remedies (and these sometimes included veterinary pr eparations) for ills and ailments. A hot mash of boiled marshmallow leaves (the plant grew wild) was used as a poul tice for sprains in horses and humans. Venice of Turps [Venice turpentine]-meant for animals-was most successful in drawing out splinters and the cores of boils , abscesses and carbuncles. But heavens! Its drawing power was so strong that it almost drew out one's bones as well! A few old-timers still swear by Venice of Turps, and are never without it in their medicine chests. [Insert pic p116] Bluestone [a crude form of copper sulphate] was universally used to remove proud flesh from festering sores, in beasts and humans. I remember my dear late mothe r putting a few bluestone crystals in the fowls' drinking water periodically to keep them fit and healthy. The fleshy inside of the bitter aloe plant was marvellous in healing sores. Ever y old-time garden contained a plant. I still have a large bush growing in my gar den. Goanna oil, made by rendering down the kidney fat of a shot goanna, was consider ed a cure-all, but the smell at times was overpowering and most objectionable. P rickly pear leaves, boiled in a little water and sweetened, did definitely nip m y whooping cough in the bud. Brandy and salt was an antiseptic for cuts and bruises. The first application wa s a case of the cure being worse than the complaint, because it generally had th e effect of causing the recipient to perform a most unusual acrobatic display in an attempt to reach the ceiling! Even gin was used as an antiseptic. One of my brothers fell from a peach tree, and a stick pierced his foot near the ankle. Da d pulled out the stick and poured pure gin into the deep puncture. It healed up beautifully, without any ill effects. I could go on and to maintain :the old-timers lived Pialba (Q), in a on about the many and varied home remedies the older folk used health and well-being of their families. The majority of these well over the allotted three score years and ten. Mrs R. f. of letter to the Editor

'Things I can Remember'

These are things I can remember from my childhood, over seventy years ago. On Kangaroo Island, in South Australia, where there was no medical aid from seve nty to eighty years ago, poultices for festers, cuts and wounds in general were often made from the leaves of the marshmallow plant. Eucalyptus leaves, of cours e, were used to make inhalations and embrocations. At Port Elliot, on .the southern coast of South Australia, my granny had a wonde rful cure for my brother's hives. We came from a dry town in northern South Aust ralia, and as soon as we reached the seaside my brother broke out in hives. Gran ny had lots of unsalted lard. She used to smear my brother all over with it, the n loosely bind him up with clean linen. This treatment immediately gave relief a nd stopped all irritation. As a child, if I had a sore throat, a wet compress was put around my throat; or the foot of a worn stocking (and the rest of the stocking wrapped over it). My f ather had a block of crystal in a box on our high mantelpiece It was sal ammonia c. With his pocket-knife he would take off a fine splinter of this for each of t he children, and we would place it at the backs of our tongues. The result was a cured throat. Senna tea, made in a cast-iron pot on our wood stove and left to simmer and brew was a dreaded weekly medicine, but very effective. Another home remedy ingredie nt was picked by the roadside-horehound. This plant was boiled and mixed with ho ney-a great cure for colds, but we loathed it. Bromide was given in small doses, seventy years ago, to babies who did not sleep well. Belladonna, aconite, and many such chemists' preparations were regularly used, as we were not near a doctor. For earache, we put salt in a frying pan, heated it, and placed it in a bag whic h the sufferer would then use as a pillow. It gave tremendous relief. Croup was treated by grating up a white turnip, on which sugar was then sprinkle d; the liquid that formed was swallowed. For a chesty cough, a brown paper yoke was made, soaked in warm olive oil and then sprinkled with nutmeg, and worn by t he sufferer for two or three days-always bringing great relief. Onion gruel was a must for a cold. To keep the feet warm, a red brick was heated by the fire, then wrapped in a pie ce of flannel. Corns were treated by rubbing them with a piece of raw onion, night and morning; or the first saliva (fasting spittle) from the mouth in the morning was used to wet them, and this was said to soften them. Toes affected by chilblains were di pped in the 'vessel' under the bed. These are just a few of the things I can remember. We all survived! 'South Australian', in a letter to the Editor Old Familiar Remedies I recall my grandmother, who was eighty or so years when she died, using the blu e-bag for bee stings. She would dampen the bag and rub it gently on the sting. H er specific for the removal of warts was the very familiar one: the sap of the m ilky thistle. When we had a sore throat she would make a paper funnel and blow s ulphur down our throats for this. She also used a mixture of sulphur and lard to cure ringworm.

In order that we should have 'clear skins' she boiled the flowers of the elderbe rry, strained the mixture, and gave the resulting concoction to us to drink. We gathered clover flowers by the hundreds for her; but unfortunately I don't re call what she used them for. Violet leaves and sarsaparilla leaves were also amo ng the ingredients of her home remedies. She made all sorts of poultices and ton ics. A grated-potato poultice she regarded as of great medicinal value. And trea cle-and-sulphur was a wonderful blood purifier, she used to say. If there was any sickness around, she used to put coals on a shovel and sprinkle sulphur on them. Then she would go from room to room to 'kill the germs'. She w ould also burn sugar on coals to 'sweeten' a sick room. When I was about eight y ears of age I contracted scarlet fever. I was isolated in a bedroom from the res t of the family. Grandmother dipped a bed sheet in a phenyle solution and hung i t at the door, to prevent contagion. Also, a basin of water with Condy's crystal s dissolved in it was left at the door for Mother to wash her hands in when eith er entering or leaving the room. Mother boiled all my bed linen and clothing in a kerosene .tin over the fire in my room, so that no one else should catch the d isease. Mrs O. H. of Mount Evelyn (V), in a letter to the Editor Some Old Wives' Tales As a child I had frequent attacks of sties and my mother told me to rub the lids with fasting spittle each morning, which I did. Later, she would rub her weddin g ring on the sties. At one stage I had about thirteen sties. Although my mother frequently took me to the doctor for various complaints, I never remember being taken while having sties-the popular belief being that even with treatment they would have to 'run their course', like the common cold. One of my young friends whose fingers were wart infested used the juice from mil k thistle-but always had warts! When I infant ey and e from ---Onions My friend Oscar Mendelsohn has written a book, Salute to Onions, which does just ice to the culinary virtues of those delectable bulbs. Perhaps there's a doctor in the house who'll do the same kind of thing for their medicinal properties. Me anwhile, in the following recipes and observations the common people salute them . Onions as a Medicine Boiled onions will cure worms in children. Onions, boiled or roasted, will cure a cold. Onions eaten raw will purify the blood. An onion poultice applied to the throat and chest, and to the soles of the feet, will cure croup. Onions, cooked or raw, should be eaten freely by persons suffering from rheumatism. A raw onio n, cut in half, and rubbed on a wasp sting, will quickly cure it. Mrs Theo. P. W inning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 Onions 'Saved a Life' My mother firmly believes that a child's life was saved, about forty-five years ago, by raw onions being chopped up, put into a piece of linen, and tied to the had my first baby, an old neighbour told me that for constipation in the the best thing to do was to wrap a hair of my head around a stem of parsl insert it in the babe's rectum. This I didn't do, as I preferred a mixtur the chemist. Mrs M. B. of Oakleigh (V), in a letter to the Editor

child's feet. You may have heard of this 'old one'. The child was suffering from some sort of fever, and both the doctor and the health sister had given the pat ient not much hope of recovery, when the child's grandmother had, as a last reso rt, tried the onion cure. The doctor and the sister were amazed to see how the f ever abated. Years later, I particularly wanted to go to a 'do', but I had a sev ere cold. I went to bed with onions tied to my feet-and woke up in the morning q uite better. So there you are, for what it's worth! Mrs M. C, of McKinnon (V), i n a letter to the Editor For Skin Spots For spots and blemishes on the skin, apply the juice of onions mixed with vinega r. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. {19th century] To Purify the Blood Raw onions are invaluable as a blood purifier. Eat them as a salad with salt and vinegar. Ground coffee will sweeten the breath. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The {Aust ralian) Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Opium and Tinctures Thereof It may come as a surprise to some readers to learn of the widespread overt use o f opium in Australia in pioneering times. It produced its addicts, but on the wh ole, as Mary Gilmore points out, the decent majority treated it with proper caut ion. Until comparatively recent times opium and its derivatives and tinctures we re readily available. Laudanum was the great favourite in England in the 18th an d 19th centuries. The poet Keats used it; everybody used it. According to T. H. White in his The Age of Scandal, laudanum and calomel were the great specifics o f the country doctor in those times. He quotes this anecdote: 'I'll tell your honour,' confided a country doctor to Sir Walter Scott, 'my twa simples are just laudamy and calamy!' 'But, John, do you never happen to kill an y of your patients?' 'Kill? Ou ay, may be sae. While they die and while no; but it's the will o' Providence. Ony how, your honour, it wad be lang before it make s up for Flodden !' Opium in the Bush (Mary Gilmore is here writing of the rural districts of New South Wales in the ' frontier period' of the late 1860s and early 1870s.) Besides snuff, and 'nailrod' [plug tobacco] for smoking and chewing, there was o pium. Quite a good deal was used in a diffused way. It came in as a result of th e opium war against China under Gordon. I have not the figures, but it will be r emembered that the great owning and exporting London interests, wanting a market for their Indian product, forced opium on China. As it was at the same time muc h used in England, English people brought the custom here. The Chinese who came to Australia became the usual source of supply, for China, having been forced to take more than she wanted, was glad of Australia as an outlet. Among our early but not earliest self-governing Acts, here in Australia, were those regulating t he importation of opium and the restriction of its distribution. But in the seve nties, and even later, it was still carried by hawkers, white and Chinese. As tr avel was difficult and journeys long, they came round about once in three months . Money being scarce, only small quantities could be bought; so, for the poorer settlers and travellers, supplies had to be used with care. [Insert pic p123]

Addicts, however, among decent people were rare. But once a poor man became an a ddict he would go into the Chinese quarter in the nearest town. These quarters, it will be remembered, were in every town till Henry Parkes, I think, legislated for their abolition, partly by law, partly by instructions to town councils and the police. The well-to-do people, of course, still got their opium, using it a t home, as similar people nowadays get their cocaine. The fact that every town h ad its Chinese quarter, no matter how far out or small the town, shows how widel y spread the opium habit was, as there were not enough working Chinese in them e ven to pay the rents, let alone live and buy opium. But it was not only those who visited these evil places who were addicts. I reme mber addicts among the station owners. Apart from these, the ordinary person too k opium as a sedative, pretty much as we take aspirin nowadays. Old nurses alway s had a supply of it, which they themselves took regularly, and gave, after chil dbirth, to make the patient sleep. I well remember many who retired at a certain hour every day to have their sedative pipe. Mary Gilmore, Old Days: Old Ways, 1 934 'To Procure Sleep and Ease Pain' Opium or Laudanum.-Used to procure sleep and ease pain, a dose of twenty drops i s sufficient. As a sudorific, that is, to cause perspiration, ten drops, with th irty of antimonial wine, mixed in a glass of white wine, is efficacious; this to be taken at bed-time. When opium greatly affects the head, medical men substitu te a same quantity of henbane. The Emigrants Guide to Australia, 1853 An Old English Recipe for Making Liquid Laudanum Take a quart of sack [white wine or dry sherry], half a pint of spirit of wine, four ounces of opium, and two ounces of saffron; slice the opium, pull the saffr on, and put it in a bottle with the sack and spirit of wine; adding :to it cinna mon, cloves and mace, of each a drachm; cork and tie down the bottle, and set it in the sun or by the fire twenty days; pour it off the dregs and it is fit to u se; ten, fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five drops. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife , 1753 A Useful Elixir Paregoric Elixir.-[Paregoric is a tincture of opium.] When coughs and colds are unattended with fever, this is usually a remedy. A teaspoonful in a glass of wat er at bed-time is a dose: if the cough be very severe, repeat dose in the mornin g. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 ---Oysters To Remove Indigestion Dyspepsia may be cured by the free use of oysters. (*) Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] [*] Throughout history the oyster has suffered almost as much blame as it has en joyed praise. Thus, Samuel Pepys writing on September 18, 1666: 'Strange with wh at freedom and quantity I pissed this night, which I know not what to impute to but my oysters, unless the coldness of the night should cause it, for it was a s ad rainy and tempestuous night.' Ed. Out of Season

Oysters are out of season when there is no letter R in the month. Mrs Theo. P. W inning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 ---Paralysis Old English Paralysis Charms 'One of the popular charms for this disease', noted Thiselton Dyer, 'is the same as that used in the case of epilepsy, namely, a silver ring made from money sol icited from a certain number of persons. Cowslips, too, have been esteemed highl y efficacious, and have on this account been termed "Herbae Paralysis" by medica l writers. For .the same reason they are called "Palsyworts" in many country pla ces.' Paralysis and Idiocy 'I had not long started school,' wrote Alan Marshall in his moving first chapter of autobiography, 1 Can lump Puddles (1955), 'when I contracted Infantile Paral ysis. The epidemic that began in Victoria in the early 1900s, moved into .the co untry districts from the more populated areas, striking down children on isolate d farms and in bush homes. I was the only victim in Turalla, and the people for miles around heard of my illness with a feeling of dread. They associated the wo rd "Paralysis" with idiocy, and the query "Have you heard if his mind is affecte d?" was asked from many a halted buggy, the driver leaning over the wheel for a yarn with a friend met on the road.' ---Parsley Parsley Tea for Kidneys Take a handful of parsley, cover with water, and boil a while. When cool, drink a glassful. It is very good for anyone troubled with their kidneys. Mrs J. N. of Ascot Vale (V), in a letter to the Editor ---Patent Medicines Some fell by laudanum, and some by steel, And death in ambush lay in every pill. (From Sir Samuel Garth, The Dispensary) I am a prey to all the hundred ills That Dr Slop hath nourish'd with his pills. (Anonymous 18th century rhyme) The greatest praise of patent medicines is usually to be found in the words of t he purveyors' own labels and advertisements. But in pioneering communities, like those, of 19th century Australia, the brand-name pills, potions and purges play ed a very important part in keeping the family on their feet; and their efficacy could be tested under the most stringent conditions. Hence Mary Gilmore's prais e of the more enduring of the many patent medicines used by bushmen is praise in deed. Of course many quack nostrums were also sold. Most were, fortunately, shor

t-lived. [Insert pic p128] Trade Medicines As to the trade medicines, of which Dr Collis Browne's chlorodyne, Holloway's Pi lls, St Jacob's Oil, Pain-killer, Friar's Balsam and Dr Jayne's Expectorant are the patriarchs, they still live and need not be further particularized. But they must have saved millions of lives in their time, for their use went all over th e world. Mary Gilmore, More Recollections, 1935 Perry Davis' Painkiller The name was not 'Perry's Painkiller' but Perry Davis' Painkiller, or just plain 'Pain Killer'. Incidentally, I well remember the remedy. A couple of three-dozen size cases of it were always on the half-yearly stores list of most stations fifty and more ye ars ago. It was a very versatile remedy, capable of being used internally for all sorts o f ills from dysentery to the common cold and/or stomach ache, or externally as a n embrocation for sprains and bruises. It was also used for inhalations for cold s, bronchitis, and other such complaints. Except that it was very 'hot', it did not have such a bad taste. Three or four d rops on a small teaspoonful of sugar was a popular way to get children to 'take something for that cold'. (*) F.E.K. of Clermont (Q), in a letter in Australasia n Post, March 28, 1957 [*] I am told that this very long-lived patent remedy is still going strong. A g ood description of its effects on a bushman patient is given by 'Tom Collins' (J oseph Furphy ), Such is Life (1903) . Ed. 'The Old Universal Drug' of Australians Painkiller was the old universal drug in the back-country; it was an alleged cur e-all for everything from in-growing toenails to a recovery from a spree. Word g ot around that another remedy, advertised as being 'good for the kidneys', had a greater percentage of alcohol than overproof rum. It was astounding the number of hands, particularly old boundary-riders camped alone, who suddenly developed bad backs, a 'sure' indication of kidney-trouble. It didn't take management long to wake-up when lashings of the stuff began flowing to the outer edges-grog bei ng barred on the job. 'K.I.N.' in the Bulletin, Sydney, October 9, 1957 Henry Lawson and Advertising [Henry Lawson, poet and storyteller, always suffered from a chronic shortage of cash; and never more so than in the period referred to in the following passage: 1916-1917.] The success of the stage-version of While the Billy Boils was turned to some pro fit by Lawson. While it was still running, he signed an agreement with the maker s of Hean's Cough Diamonds and Hean's Essence - 'the Great Money-Saving Remedy f or Coughs, Colds, Croup, Catarrh, and other Chest and Throat Troubles', and an a dvertisement, complete with Henry's photo, a blurb about the play, and an origin al poem praising the healing qualities of the essence, appeared in the Sydney pr ess. The Poem is in somewhat different vein to his usual work:

Take Henry Lawson's advice. If yer Gotter Corf about yer Gotter Corf Gotter Corf If yer Gotter Corf about yer Gotter Corf Feelin' Orf Have some Horse Sense; Take Hean's ESSENCE It will Rid YER of that Corf That's a Cert. (Henry Lawson) In 1917, before the coming of brash advertising methods such as are practised on radio and television, Lawson's action in taking part in advertising was regarde d as caddish in the extreme. Highbrows of the day looked on it as merely another instance of Lawson's incurable bounderism. It is very easy to worry about the d ignity of letters with a steady income rolling in, but a man in Lawson's state o f perpetual 'hard-up-ness' can't afford to be choosy. Lawson was apparently cyni cal about the business. On one occasion the makers of a cure for rheumatism pest ered him for a testimonial. He handed in the following: 'I find your rheumatic c ure excellent for lighting fires and oiling boots with.' The published advertise ment, however, was somewhat differently worded. Denton Prout, Henry Lawson: The Grey Dreamer, 1963 ---Pleurisy For a Pleurisy (An Old English Cure) Let the patient bleed plentifully, then drink off a pint of spring-water with 30 drops in it of spirit of sal-armoniac [sal ammoniac]; this must be done as soon as the party is seized. Approved by myself. S.C. Quoted in E. Smith, The Comple at Housewife, 1753 ---Poultices An Old English Poultice for a Sore Breast, Leg or Arm Boil wheat-flour in strong ale very well, and pretty thick; then take it off the fire, and scrape in some boars-grease, stir it well and apply it hot. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Treacle Poultice Treacle Poultice.- is made by mixing a pound of flour with half a pint of treacl e, warm it over a fire, stirring all the time, spread it on linen, and then use it. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 The Value of Carrot Poultice A carrot finely grated and made into a poultice is good for cancer or ulcer, whi ch both lessens the pain and diminishes the smell. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] A Poultice for Sprains

Bread-and-water poultice at night; continue for some days. If the pain be great, bleed the part with leeches. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 A Good Poultice for Neuralgia, &c. Many a time the lonely bushman suffers a martyrdom of pain from neuralgia, cold, earache, etc. etc., because he has nothing by him to alleviate it - or imagines he has nothing, yet while there are gum leaves to be got he can have nothing be tter. Let him cut the young leaves up very fine with his tobacco knife, mix them with some fat, if he has it, water if not, and boil them for a few minutes, the n pour into a handkerchief or a clean woolen sock; put this into the place where the pain is, and in a minute or two it will give relief. Mrs Lance Rawson, The Antipodean Cookery Book and Kitchen Companion, 1895 ---Pregnancy, or a Recipe for Conception An Old English Mixture to Promote Breeding Let the party take the syrup of stinking orach, (*) a spoonful, night and mornin g, for a week or more; then as follows: take three pints of good ale, boil in it the piths of three ox-backs, (**) half a handful of clary [a garden herb specie s, a handful of nepp (or cat-mint), a quarter of a pound of dates stoned, sliced , and the pith taken out; a handful of raisins of the sun stoned, three whole nu tmegs prick'd full of holes; boil all these till half be wasted; strain it out, and drink a small wine glass full at your going to bed; as long as it lasts, acc ompany not with your husband during the taking, or some time before, be very che erful, and let nothing disquiet you. Take shepherds-purse [Capsella bursa-pastor alis] a good handful, and boil it in a pint of milk till half be consumed, and d rink it off. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 [*] Probably orris, or orrice, a kind of iris. Ed. [**] Spinal marrow of an ox. Ed. ---Quacks and 'Pseudo Physicians' Writing of the Australian outback in the 1860s, in Australia as it Is, 'A Clergy man (Rev. John Morison) observed, 'The want of medical attendance, one is very a pt to suppose, must be severely felt in the thinly populated pastoral districts, where there are squatters residing with their families; however, an arrangement is often entered into by contributing a sum of money in the shape of a bounty f or the residence of a medical practitioner. There is also a fair sprinkling of i ndividuals who have some knowledge of medicine and surgery, who can prescribe an d "put to their hands" in cases of emergency; whilst there are few of the squatt ers who are not provided with a medicine chest.' It's the above-mentioned 'fair sprinkling of individuals,' some of them amateur doctors, others out-and-out frauds, who roamed the bush or settled in small town s and hamlets, whose activities are discussed in this section. Some attention is also given to the city quacks of the 19th century, notably in New South Wales w here, until a late date, it wasn't lawfully necessary to have a doctor's signatu re on a death certificate. 'Individuals calling themselves Surgeons' [From the Sydney Gazette, February, 1838:]

There is an urgent necessity of passing some legislative enactment which while i t enabled the Colonists to guard against quackery, should at the same time prote ct the interests of all regularly qualified practitioners. The law requires that an attorney who can only tamper with our purses be not only duly qualified for office before admission, but that he should also be, nominally at least, a man o f good character. The medical practitioner who tampers not only with our purse, but what is of more importance, with our body health, may, for any provision the Colonial code of law contains, be one of the greatest villains on earth. Surely it is the duty of the Legislature to prevent uneducated ignorant men tampering with human life . . . the Colony swarms with individuals calling themselves Surg eons. Quoted in Keith Macarthur Brown, Medical Practice in old Parramatta, 1937 'He Managed to Kill one or two People' Quinine and Holloway's pills are the two staple remedies on which men in the Bus h pin their faith: stay, there is a third; a well known colonial recipe is to mi x two ounces of Epsom salts with a pint of water, and load yourself with blanket s after taking it. In addition to its other effects, the dose produces a violent perspiration. In the Bush every man is usually his own doctor: I doubt very muc h if a regular medical man would find confidence or employment. There was, in my time, a quack doctor, however, who used to travel from station to station, and who, through constantly boasting of his skill and experience, was not ashamed to own that he had no diploma, and had never received any medical training. He ear ned large sums. Seldom did much harm. In spite, however, of all his caution, he managed to kill one or two people. For instance, there was a man suffering on a station where I happened to be, fro m internal inflammation. He called in the aid of the quack, who thought that a b lister on the stomach might do him good. This blister, made of 'James's blisteri ng oil' for horses, he applied to the part alluded to, intending to take it off in a few minutes. Unfortunately he omitted to do so for two hours, as he went to the public-house a few yards off, with a friend, and forgot all about it. The m an, left alone in the hut, was too weak to help himself, and the consequences ne ed hardly be told,-he died. The same practitioner once paid me a visit when I was lying prostrate, and, as I thought, at my last gasp, on a sheet of bark in a woolshed. He heard that I was in a bad way, and came down to see me, from the station where he was staying. H e felt my pulse first, and compared it with his own, shaking his head wisely. He then placed his finger on the edge of my forehead, and felt the corresponding p lace in his own, and then he asked as me if I had any money. Now I loathed the v ery sight of this man; so I E mustered up all my strength to shout 'No! and if I had, you shouldn't touch it!' He then went sulkily away, and from that hour I b egan to amend. He never came near me again, however. 'A University Man,' Colonia l Adventurer, 1871 'The Elysium of Quacks' In all large Australian cities [c.1890] there are tribes of doctors, and New Sou th Wales is the Elysium of quacks. Victoria and Queensland have medical acts res tricting the practice of medicine. New South Wales has none, consequently the co lumns of the newspapers are filled with advertisement of herbalists, medical cla irvoyants, system mongers of all kinds, who commend their cheap fees and remedie s to the gullible public, and drive a roaring trade. A select committee was appointed about three years ago by parliament to inquire into this state of things and report on the advisability of providing a medical bill for New South Wales. The evidence given before it was startling in the extr eme. It was published at length in some of the daily papers. Intelligent men cou

ld come to but one conclusion on the matter, but there are as yet no signs that the bill is forthcoming. Both qualified and non-qualified men were examined. The testimony of some of the latter was in the highest degree amusing. Here are some extracts from the offic ial report: Mr Michael G-, called, sworn, and examined What are you? A herbalist. What do you mean by that? I cure all diseases of the eye with an external application and internal medicine. O f what character are y our remedies? Purely herbal: no poisons. Are there no vegetable poisons? It is v egetable matter, vegetable extract not of a poisonous nature. You call yourself a botanical oculist? Yes. You give advice on other subjects beside the eye? I tr eat the stomach, the liver, spleen and heart, for these are connected with the e ye. When did you .study medicine? About twenty-five years ago. Under whom? My ow n, as it came into my head. You never had any teacher? No. only the Almighty. Th e Bible is my guide to botany, and the Almighty promised me every herb-bearing s eed on earth to be my food and nourishment, and I read in my own Bible that ther e was a man blind for four years and he could be cured; and I found out that cur e from the Holy Scriptures. The Bible I study is my guide to botany, and Almight y God is my physician, my teacher, my guide in every form. Which version of the Bible do you .study? The Douay. In answer to a question as to what he was doing four years previously, before he began to practice medicine, this gentleman said: I was working at a circular sa w. I was working as a labourer for the Corporation of Balmain and as a generally useful man. Do you have many patients? Yes, hundreds. They pay you certain fees I suppose? I charge them according to their means. But you are practising medic ine for your livelihood? Yes, and the benefit of the public. But for your livelihood and at a means of ga in? No! I had to leave my work. I was curing for two years for nothing and I got such a name that the public took me out of work. I could not serve both masters , so I made a little charge. I had to leave my work, the patients were shoving m e. You always examine your patients before you treat them? Certainly. Have you a ny knowledge of anatomy? Yes, in my own idea, not the doctors' idea of today. My system is a new one. Have you .studied it? Yes, upon animals. Did you ever study human anatomy? I lea rn more from the animal kingdom than the human kingdom a jolly sight. There is n ot a blind animal under the sun I did not take and examine him and had his eyes out. And I had pigs' eyes and the nerves of pigs' eyes is just like the nerves o f men's eyes, and man's eyes is like the roots of a tree, and all diseases of th e human eye comes through the nerves of .the eye, and man gets blind from the mo rbid state of his body. Have you one special remedy in which you have more faith than others? Yes. How d id you discover it? Experimenting on my own eye. And on nobody else's? On myself first. What gave you the idea that this remedy would be good for the eyes? Well , I will explain. When I goes out in the morning to look for herbs I prays to th e Almighty to direct me, and if it is His will, to hand into my hands that which is requisite for me. I went out, month after month, and I used to give month ab out for each kind of herb. I went on this particular morning, 25th December, 188 2, and I went forth in God's name as usual and I picked up this herb and I came home and extracted that and applied to my eyes, and in the morning when I got up my eye was closed, swelled, and when I opened the eye the putrid discharge that came from the eye flew into the glass. 'Well,' I said to my Missis, Mrs G-, 'Th is is what is blinding my eye. Now,' I says, 'I will stick to this and see what recompense I derive from it.' I kept at it, using it every night in bed, and six

months I could see a little bit like a red spark of fire from a candle. I kept on for six months and I could see daylight, and this was four years last Christm as night, and I am now able to see everybody. Professor Stuart, of the universit y, told me that if I found a remedy that would cure my eye it would be worth the university of gold, and Dr Evans and Dr MacKellar told me I would never see wit h it. And you do? Yes. How many times did you pray for direction? Every night and morn ing. And your prayers were only answered on one occasion? I prayed to the Almigh ty - 'That Thou would enlighten my understanding, inflame my will, uplift my bod y, and sanctify my soul. That Thou will be pleased to have mercy on me and resto re me my sight that has been lost through the disease that Thou had put on me wh en I was a child.' In that prayer you said nothing about the Almighty directing you to a remedy? Then I went and looked for herbs and tried one month, and anoth er, another month, and I extracted all these herbs, month by month. I went out o n this particular morning as usual, and mind you I was fifteen years at this, an d at last I picked up this herb on the 25th December, 1882, and it has done good for me and others, and it is a grand thing to find it out. I should like to say I lost 5 (pounds sterling) by coming here and that my patients are being neglec ted. Four shillings does not pay me for coming here to-day. I am 5 out of pocket . I am run with patients and I am doing a lot of good and I think I ought to be appreciated for it. So much for the botanical oculist. I may as well mention, however, that before t he members of the select committee, who evidently showed a lack of appreciation for his talents, allowed him to get back to his anxiously waiting patients, they extracted, with some difficulty, from this pious person a few interesting parti culars of his previous career, in which hurried and secret departures-false name s-an illegitimate child, were among the things mentioned. With references to his testimony that Professor Anderson Stuart, of the Sydney University, had said th at his remedy would be worth a university of gold, evidence was given by the Pro fessor that he had had an interview with the botanical oculist, but remembered m aking no such statement. 'He came to me,' said Dr Stuart, 'on the ground that I was a director of Prince Alfred Hospital, and he desired me to use my influence to have a certain number of patients placed at his disposal so that he might compete with the doctors at the institution in the treatment of eye cases. I answered that I could and would do no such thing, and after some parleying, which convinced me that the man was an arrant quack, I dismissed him.' Did you examine his eye? No. The following are some of the answers of a clairvoyant: What is your calling? Clairvoyant and medical herbalist. You never had any other calling? As a boy I was a bootmaker. Explain the meaning of the term medical cl airvoyant? That is an impossibility: the common name of the thing is far-seeing, or second-sight. What do you profess to do as a medical clairvoyant? To treat p eople, to diagnose. When did you find out that you had this faculty? Through a m esmeric influence. Are you influenced by some higher power not belonging to this world? That is beyond my power to say. Some say it is a lower power because it has been asserted that I am influenced by the devil. It is not for me to say. Ho w the power comes I am unable to define. When a patient comes to you what do you do? You want to get at the secrets of my theory; I decline to answer the questi on. You are asked how you deal with a patient. I cannot tell; being under clairv oyant influence I do not know. Are the names of the remedies for each particular complaint conveyed to you through this influence? It must be so, because each d iagnosis is quite separate, and each person separate. If I came to your rooms an d wished to have a remedy for some complaint, what course would you take? I shou ld not do anything whatever. What would be done to me?

Well, I do not know. But you in corporeal presence are there: would you speak to me and see me? As far as I can ascertain the faculty of speech is the same, but I know nothing at all. Then how do you get into or when do you get into the mesmeric or clairvoyant state? It occurs every morning. Do you remain in it the whole day? No. You go into it for every fresh care? No. What are your hours? Nine to twelve. Do you remain in it from nine to twelve? N o, there is a break at times when the brain gets overstrained. Do you go into th is state at will? No. It is impossible to inform you how I go into it. Doer it c ome every day? Yes, unless the system is over tired. Doer it come on Sundays? Ne ver on Sundays. It omits that day of the week? Sometimes, if the system is overs trained it omits two or three days. There were several of these clairvoyants examined, not one of them knew 'how he did it'. Some had to keep attendants to come and wake them up after they had bee n in their trance a certain time. There was much mystery surrounding their proce sses and the various influences seemed capricious in their behaviour, sometimes keeping their subjects enthralled for days, resolving themselves into cataleptic fits, and doing other strange and marvellous things, not the least of which was the extraction of many half-guineas from the pockets of hundreds of people in s upposed possession of their senses. These pseudo physicians had in some cases made fortunes. One had retired on his profits and lived on his estate in the Blue Mountains: from grooming horses he h ad passed to doctoring them, and from doctoring horses to doctoring asses (of th e human species, male and female). Another, with airy impudence, informed the co mmittee that he was worth 'five or six shillings'. You are worth 50,000 are you not? asked the chairman. Yes, and another 50,000 adde d to it, was the answer. I am engaged in squatting. I am a landed proprietor. He gave it as his opinion that he had treated from 15,000 to 20,000 patients in thirteen years. This man was unregistered and unqualified, although the holder o f a degree from the notorious Institution known as the 'Edinburgh University of Chicago', which, for sufficient reasons is now extinct. He posed at the end of h is examination as the friend of the committee in its inquiry, and said that he c onsidered a medical bill necessary for the interests of the colony, only he thou ght, in fairness to himself and a few other 'old identities', fathers of large f amilies, some exception should be made in their case. His own words are best: 'Within the last five years Sydney has been inundated with a class of men of no qualifications at all. I do not say my diploma is worth the snap of the finger, and I never did. I never put any prefix to my name on my door-plate, so that , I have not deceived the public; but within the last few years a large number of p eople have come to this colony who have placed letters to their names and assume d qualifications that they did not possess. I consider that a medical bill is ne cessary, but that it should not apply to about half-a-dozen of us in the colonyold identities, men who were really the pioneers of the place when there were fe w medical men in the country. I quite agree that the profession is being overcro wded, and that there ought to be some law on the subject, but I hope that an exc eption will be made of the smaller number of men to whom I have referred, and wh o have been practising in the colonies for a large number of years.' Though it is open to unqualified persons to practice medicine according to their own sweet will, there are sharp distinctions between them and those who are dul y qualified. The funny thing about it all is that with the sole exception of pre stige and social position (for which they care nothing) all the advantages are o n the side of the quacks. Edward Kinglake, The Australian at Home, 1891 The Spieler and the Miner

There's an old-time bushman's story about a medical spieler who specialised in c uring 'specks before the eyes'. He arrived one day at a newly opened Victorian g oldfield and set up his shingle in the local shanty. Patients came, and were supplied with medicine in lemonade bottles. There was no chemist on the 'rush', and the quack carried no drugs; but a small matter like that did not trouble him. His physic was water, coloured with cherry tooth-paste . When the dentifrice ran out, he found some other colouring matter, and the pink mixture gave way to a brown one, and hence came his downfall and subsequent flig ht. His last patient was a huge miner, who received a bottle of brown stuff in excha nge for his 1. He examined it critically. 'Look here, Doc,' said he, 'none of yer stringin'-on, now. I want that pink stuff wot cured Bill.' The pink stuff not b eing 'on', a huge hand closed on the 'doctor's' neck, and was only removed when the choking quack refunded the fee. Quoted in Bill Wannan, Hay, Hell and Booliga l, 1961 A Quack with Quandongs 'Shoddy droppers' (Indian hawkers) were often to be met with in outback areas du ring the early years of this century. They invariably carried a supply of patent medicines such as Pain-killer with them on their rounds to sell to boundary rid ers and other bush workers. One 'dropper' I knew used to break quandong nuts, extract their kernels, dip the m in a mixture of flour and icing sugar, and sell them at 2/6d. a packet of ten. He claimed that they were good for 'ache in the guts'. B.D. of North Melbourne (V), in a letter to the Editor 'There's Gold in them thar Ills' Talking of ailments reminds me that there have been many quack remedies sold in the bush in the past. 'There's gold in them thar ills' might well have been the slogan of the old-time medical charlatans. One of my correspondents, a Granville (NSW) man, recalls how two such crooks sol d THE GREAT CORN REMEDY during the Depression years of the early 1930s. Having o nly a few shillings between them they spent it in the purchase of some cakes of soap which they cut into half-inch cubes. Meanwhile, they had spent a great deal of time picking up pieces of silver paper which they smoothed out carefully. Ha ving wrapped the bits of soap in the silver paper they were ready to go into bus iness. Standing on the corner of the main street in a country town in Queensland, one o f them began spruiking about 'the world's greatest corn cure'. Soon quite a crow d had gathered. 'Next week, ladies and gents,' said the quack, 'this famous remedy will be on sa le in all chemists' shops throughout the country at the price of five shillings. But in order to advertise it we are releasing a small quantity at half price. T here will be a limit of two per customer.' The two crooks soon sold out. They were far away by the time their Victims had r ealised that the 'corn cure' was so much 'soft soap'. Bill Wannan, 'Come in Spin ner', Australasian Port, August 6, 1964 ----

Rheumatism Probably no complaint has been so universally the target of folk cures and remed ies as rheumatism. The most popular of these, as far as Australia is concerned, have probably been those listed for me by an old-timer: (i) Garlic sliced and wo rn in the sufferer's socks; (ii) a potato carried in the pocket; (iii) the sting ing of the patient by bees; (iv) the drinking of lemon juice every morning; (v) a copper bracelet worn on the sufferer's wrist; (vi) an application of canna lea ves to the affected parts. Charm curing, it will be noted, played an important p art here, as it has done over the centuries in England, and the British Isles ge nerally. An Excellent Embrocation for Rheumatic Pains Place a half bottle of methylated spirit on a bed of meat-ants. e first made savage by somebody jumping on their bed.) The ants to the bottle. When it is filled with ants it is cooked and put weeks. It is then strained; and the resultant liquid will prove rocation. Mrs R. J. of Pialba (Q), in a letter to the Editor ~~ [*] There would seem to be more than a hint here of the survival in Australia of a venerable English folk-medical tradition. In English Physician Enlarged, a 17 th century herbal similar to Nicolas Culpeper's famous one of 1653, there is thi s notation: Lily of the Valley. Government and Virtues under Mercury, therefore strengthens the brain and recruits a weak memory. The flowers put in a close stopped glass, put into an ant-hill, and taken away again in a month's time, ye shall find a li quor in the glass which being outwardly applied, helps the gout. ~~ A Popular Recipe for Rheumatism Mix together: 1 tablespoonful of soda-bicarbonate; 1 tablespoonful of Epsom salt s; 1 tablespoonful of sulphur; 1 tablespoonful of ground ginger; 1 teaspoonful o f salt-petre. Dosage: Take one teaspoonful in 1/2 glass of water first thing in the morning, f ollowed a half hour later with a large glass of cold water. It should be taken d aily for one month, then leave off for a few weeks, then take again for two week s. After that, an occasional dose is all that is required. This recipe was suppl ied to the Editor by Mrs G.W.B. of Glen-thompson (V), and several other correspo ndents Old English Charms Against Rheumatism Professors of the healing art have advised the sufferer to carry about in his po cket the right fore-foot of a female hare, while others consider a potato equall y efficacious. A Cornish cure is to crawl under a bramble which has formed a sec ond root under the ground, or to drink water in which a thunder-stone has been b oiled. There is, also, a strong belief that a galvanic ring, as it is called, wo rn on the finger will serve as an excellent preservative. 'A large number of per sons', says Mr Glyde in his 'Norfolk Garland', 'may be seen with a clumsy-lookin g silver ring, which has a piece of copper let into the inside, and this, though in constant contact throughout, is supposed (aided by the moisture of the hand) to keep up a gentle but continual galvanic current, and so alleviate rheumatism (*) (The ants ar will swarm up in aside for a few an excellent emb

'. A Sussex remedy is to place the bellows in the sufferer's chair that he may l ean against them, and so have his rheumatism charmed away. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 [Insert pic p144] Bee Venom and Rheumatism I have tried folk medicine many times when doctors have been unable to cure-espe cially bee venom for rheumatic complaints, including rheumatic fever. Also bee v enom for high blood pressure. I purchased a hive, and brought my blood pressure down to normal from 220 to 160 in a very short time by following the Russian pla n of bee stings. In Russia, bee venom is injected by needle, but you can also st ing with the bee itself. 'Grannie' of Bourke (NSW), in a letter to the Editor Lord Anson's Prescription for Rheumatism [Baron Anson (1697-1762), British admiral, was noted for his circumnavigation of the globe, and his defeat of the French off Cape Finisterre, 1747. According to folklore, Anson derived so much personal benefit from the following cure that h e bought the prescription for 300 and made it public for the nation's benefit.] * * * * * * 1 oz. sulphur. 1 oz. cream of tartar. 1 oz. best rhubarb. 1 drachm gum guaiacum. 16 oz. honey. To be well mixed.

Dose: - One tablespoonful to be taken in hot water night and morning. A never-fa iling cure for rheumatism if persevered with for several months. The Leader Spar e Corner Book, 1931 A Tincture for Rheumatism Tincture of Guaiacum.-[Gum Guaiacum is the exudation from the trees of the Guaia cum genus, imported from the West Indies.] Efficacious in rheumatic complaints: the dose, a teaspoonful. It may be taken at bed-time, and likewise in the mornin g. It should be mixed in cold water, and that by pouring the water quickly upon the tincture and stirring it all the time. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 18 53 Antimonial Powder This is given in fevers attended with inflammatory symptoms and rheumatic pains. Take four grains made into a pill, with some conserve, every six hours. The Emi grant's Guide to Australia, 1853 An Old English Remedy for a Rheumatism, or Pain in the Bones Take a quart of milk, boil it, and turn it with three pints of small-beer; then strain the posset on seven or nine globules of stone-horse {stallions} dung tied up in a cloth, and boil it a quarter of an hour in the posset-drink; when it is taken off the fire press the cloth hard, and drink half a pint of this morning and night hot in bed; if you please you may add white wine to it. This medicine is not good if troubled with the stone. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Another for the Same Let the party take of the finest glazed gunpowder as much as a large thimble may

hold; wet it in a spoon with milk from the cow, and drink a good half-pint of w arm milk after it; be covered warm in bed, and sweat: give it fasting about seve n in the morning, and take this nine or ten mornings together. Ibid Rheumatics and Rain 'Me rheumatics,' moaned Big Tom ... 'It's me rheumatics. Got a nawful screw then . Must be going t' rain at last! Always get it bad when rain comes after a long dry spell. Oh, oh!' He rocked back and forth. Charles Shaw, 'The Sickness of "An dy"', A Sheaf of Shorts, 1944 ---Rings and Folklore 'Medicated Rings' ... certain mysterious virtues have been supposed to reside in rings, not so muc h on account of their shape as from the materials of which they have been compos ed. Thus, they have been much worn as talismans or charms, being thought to be i nfallible preservatives against unseen dangers of every kind. Referring to some of these, we find, for instance, that the turquoise ring was believed to possess special properties, a superstition to which Dr Donne alludes: 'A compassionate turquoise, that doth tell, By looking pale, the wearer is not well.' Fenton, too, in his 'Secret Wonders of Nature', describes the stone:-'The turkey s doth move when there is any peril prepared for him that weareth it'. The turqu oise ring of Shylock, which, we are told in the Merchant of Venice (Act iii., sc . 1), he would not part with for a 'wilderness of monkeys', was, no doubt, value d for its secret virtues . . . . A piece of popular superstition makes it unlucky to wear an opal ring, although this lovely stone has always been an object of peculiar admiration from the beau tiful variety of colours which it displays, and in the Middle Ages was even thou ght to possess the united virtues of all the gems with whose distinctive colours it was emblazoned. The diamond was believed to counteract poison, a notion whic h prevailed to a comparatively late period .... Among the omens associated with rings, we may briefly note that to lose a ring w hich has been given as a pledge of affection is unlucky; as also is the breaking of a ring on the finger ... In days gone by, too, 'medicated rings' were held i n great repute, and were much used for the cure of diseases, instances of which we find among the remedies still in use for cramp, epilepsy, and fits. Silver se ems to have been considered highly efficacious; and rings made of lead, mixed wi th quicksilver, were worn as charms against headaches and other complaints. Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---Ringworm To Cure Ringworm Get some carbonate of soda and strong vinegar; mix, and put on the ringworm. A f ew applications will kill the disease, and it is a remedy that is in every home. 'Helped'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 ----

Seaweed Seaweed for Lumbago old-timers living in the coastal regions of Queensland used to eat seaweed to cu re lumbago; but just as effective, some claimed, was the placing of strips of dr ied seaweed inside the mattress of one's bed. E.S. of Hervey Bay (Q), in a lette r to the Editor. [Insert pic p150] ---Sex Prognostication The only objection which I, admittedly a layman in such matters, would wish to m ake to the following method of sex divination is that it doesn't help one to fin d out how the first nipper will turn out. To Determine the Sex of an Unborn Child The Hindoo Mothers the first to make this Discovery.-Previous to a child being b orn, the mother is anxious to know its sex, and this may be known thus-If the ch ild born next before had peaked hair in the neck it will be a boy, but if straig ht hair it will be a girl. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th centur y] ---Sleep Old English Sleeping Superstitions Various theories in this country {England) have been, at different times, starte d as to the proper position of the bedstead during the hours of sleep, which fin d ready acceptance among those who are ever ready to grasp any new idea, however fanciful it may be. A correspondent of The Builder, writing on the subject, say s= So far as my own observations have gone, I know that my sleep is always more sound when my head is placed to the north. There are persons whom I know, the he ad of whose bed is to the north, and who, to awake early, will reverse their usu al position in the bed, but without knowing the reason why, beyond "that they co uld always wake earlier", the sleep being more broken.' An eminent physician in Scotland states that, when he failed by every other prescription to bring sleep to invalid children, he recommended their couches or little beds to be turned du e north and south-the head of the child being placed towards the north-a process which he had always found successful in promoting sleep. Rev. T. F. Thiselton D yer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 Sleep or Beef-steak? Sleep. -One hours sleep before midnight is worth three after. Early risers are l ong livers. Five minutes' sleep is equal to one pound of beefsteak. Golden Recip es: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Smallpox Small-pox Mastered

Small-pox is mastered by one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar to each half-pint o f hot water. Drink freely. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th centur y] A Small-pox Cure 'Fried mice,' wrote the Rev. Thiselton Dyer (c. 1881), 'are considered in some [ English] counties a good specific for this complaint, it being thought necessary by some that they should be fried alive.' Old Australian Treatments for Small-pox I was once taken to either Dr L. or Dr R. in Wagga Wagga, and as my frock was be ing undone at the neck so that whichever doctor it was could sound my chest, the one in question removed his 'good' coat, and going to where his ordinary surger y-coat hung behind the door took it from its peg to put it on. As he lifted it a whole cloud of flies rose from where they had been clustered on it. The front w as stiff with blood and matter, and had an odour like a half-dried hide. The fil th, the flies, and the smell were then the accepted signs of the efficiency of a doctor. No doctor would be anybody without them. [Insert pic p154] Sometime in the early seventies, small-pox having broken out in Sydney, all our North-of-Ireland Hamilton, Montgomery, Duffin, MacIntyre, MacNickle, and Mulholl and neighbours inoculated their children with lymph from a calf, the family inst rument being an ordinary darning-needle. But I had to be 'properly' vaccinated. So I was taken to town to be done. When my arm was bared, whichever of the medic al men crossed to the mantelpiece, on which was a slide of glass covered with fl ies. The flies rose in a cloud as he lifted it, and the horrible surface, lymph and all, was spotted with fly-specks. Though only a child, with horror I thought , 'Am I to be done with that?' The doctor took a lance and with 'That!' he vacci nated me. I remember days or weeks later on, opening my eyes out of a stupor as I lay in bed, and seeing my father and an old white 'nurse' standing beside me. 'If she lives she will lose her arm; it is black to the shoulder now,' the woman was saying. 'But she can't live, she is too far gone,' she added. After the delirium passed I did live, but I lost all my finger-nails and toe-nai ls, and my hair fell out like a long dead person's. About seven years old, I was left absolutely bald, and for a year I had to wear a cap or a hood to hide my b are skull. It was this doctor who used to let the spiders spin in the surgery so that he co uld have the web handy to put on wounds. He said Australian spider web was dean when father asked him was it safe to use. Mary Gilmore, More Recollections, 1935 ---Spiders and Cobweb Thiselton Dyer's attempt, in the following extract, to link the respect commonly held for the spider and its web with Christian mythology, fails to account for the veneration accorded to the spider in pre-Christian antiquity. Certainly, mag ic and spiders have long gone together; and the use of cobweb to stop the bleedi ng of cuts, or the swallowing of cobweb pills to allay the effects of asthma, ca n't be attributed to practical considerations alone. By the way, see the ASTHMA entry.

Luck and Spiders A common proverb reminds us that 'If you wish to live and thrive, Let the spider run alive,' ill luck being supposed to quickly overtake those who kill or even so much as in jure it. It was a notion formerly prevalent in many parts of Scotland that shoul d a servant willfully kill a spider, she would certainly break a piece of crocke ry or glass before the day was out. One reason why the spider is protected again st ill-usage is that it is supposed to bring prosperity; but the real cause, per haps, is due to the influence of an old legend which relates how, when Christ la y in the manger at Bethlehem, the spider came and spun a web over the spot where He was, thus preserving His life by screening Him from all the dangers that sur round Him. Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 Cobweb Magic An old established belief still constantly in use today as a cure for bleeding, is to put a cobweb on it. This is quite common in Wales. It stems, not only from the real absorbent effect of the cobweb, but from the magic inherent in the spi der. Dorothy Jacob, Cures and Curses. 1967 Modes of Stopping Bleeding Powdered rice sprinkled on a cut or wound stops bleeding at once; or a cobweb la id on the cut will have the same effect. Kandy Koola Cook Book, n.d. A Memory of Cobweb I personally have a very unhappy memory of my father trying to force me to submi t to having a lump of extremely dirty cobweb (taken from a stable rafter of all places!) put on a cut on my forehead. The idea was that the web would cause the wound to heal without scarring. I kicked up such a fuss that it wasn't put on th e cut-otherwise I probably wouldn't be alive to tell you the tale! Mrs B. L. of East Doncaster (V), in a letter to the Editor. ---Spitting For continued spitting eat a few raisins occasionally. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] Blood Spitting Spitting of blood is stopped immediately by drinking sage tea sweetened with hon ey. Ibid To cure Spitting of Blood, if a Vein is broken (Old English) Take of mice-dung beaten to a powder, t in a quarter of a pint of the juice ies), with a little sugar; give it in bed. Continue this some time, and it ompleat Housewife, 1753. ---as much as will lie on a six-pence; and pu of plantane (the herb of the plantain spec the morning fasting, and at night going to will make whole, and cure. E. Smith, The C

Stitch A Water for the Stitch (Old English) Take a gallon of new ale wort [fermenting malt in an infusion], and put to it as much stone-horse [stallion's] dung as will make it pretty thick; add to this a pound of London treacle, two pennyworth of ginger sliced, and six pennyworth of saffron, mix these together, and distil off in a cold still: take three or four spoonfuls at a time. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 For Stitch in the Side For a stitch in the side, apply treacle mixed with a very hot potato. Golden Rec ipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Sulphur For the Relief of Croup Wrap the patient in a blanket, keeping the head up, and give the following mixtu re:-1 teaspoonful sulphur, 1 teaspoonful vinegar, and the white of 1 egg, beaten together. P.W.M.U. Cookery Book of Victoria, 1904 Sulphur Baths Good for Itch Travellers and others have much risk to run in having unclean sheets supplied to sleep in, the consequence is some skin diseases, such as the itch, tantamount t o ringworms, for which sulphur baths should be used immediately. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. (19th century) [Insert pic p159] For Eczema, or Itch Make an ointment of lard and sulphur, or use beef marrow instead of lard, and ru b well on the eruptions. Use no soap in washing, but bathe with warm water and c arbonate of soda. Take cooling medicine. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 To Relieve Lumbago I was a martyr to lumbago, 'Helper' wrote, until I was told to try sulphur. I pu t some in my bed socks at night and some in my shoes in the morning. In a few da ys the pain was gone, and now at 54 years of age I am strong enough to look afte r my 1/2 -acre of garden. The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 ---Sunburn For the Relief of Sun Burns For sun burns, wash the face in sage tea. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n. d. [19th century] ----

Sunstroke Precaution To Prevent Sunstroke: A Rural Precaution Wear a cool cabbage leaf inside the crown of the hat. This sounds very simple, b ut it is worth remembering. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian) Household Man ual, c. 1899 ---The Teeth We no longer apply the body of a freshly-killed mouse to an aching tooth, like t he ancient Egyptians, or wear a tooth taken from a dead man's skull to ward off the toothache, as was done until recently in parts of Britain. But modern man ha s his own strange folklore connected with the teeth. In an article in the Melbou rne Age (January 13, 1970), Kevin Childs reported on an interview with Professor Storey, professor of conservative dentistry at Melbourne University. 'Professor Storey,' he wrote, 'puts modern toothpaste in roughly the same category as the ancient cure of grasshoppers' eggs suspended in a little sack around the neck. ' "If I believed some television incantations," (Professor Storey) said in a rec ent address, "teeth now have no role in speech, chewing or digestion, but if ano inted with magic pastes become magnetic sex symbols, whose degree of cleanliness and brightness determines the degree of mutual attractiveness or repulsiveness between members of the opposite sex." ' An old Welsh Prescription for Extracting a Tooth without Pain Take some newts, by some called lizards, and those nasty beetles which are found in ferns during summer, calcine them in an iron pot, and make a powder thereof. Wet the forefinger of the right hand, insert it in the powder, and apply it to the tooth frequently, refraining from spitting it off, when the tooth will fall away without pain. It is proven. From Prescriptions of the Physicians of Myddfai , quoted in Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales of Wales, 1947 Teeth and Luck . . . some of the superstitions connected with the teeth are quaint,' observed t he Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer (c. 1881), 'and afford opportunities to the credulo us for drawing omens of various kinds. Thus to dream about teeth is held to be a warning that sorrow of some kind is at hand; and it is even unluckier still to dream of one's teeth falling out. It is also frequently the custom, for the sake of luck, to throw a tooth when extracted into the fire, a practice which . . . is frequently most scrupulously kept up in the case of young children, to make s ure of the remainder of their teeth coming properly. Furthermore, to have teeth wide apart is a sign of prosperity, and is said to indicate one's future happine ss in life.' To cure the Tooth-ach (Old English) Let the party that is troubled with the tooth-ach lie on the contrary side, drop three drops of the juice of rue into the ear on that side the tooth acheth, let it remain an hour or two, and it will remove the pain. E. Smith, The Compleat H ousewife, 1753 The 'Good Old-fashioned Cure' for Toothache Also the good old-fashioned cure, which succeeds often when everything else fail s. Dip a small piece of strong brown paper in whisky, sprinkle it with pepper, a

nd apply to the face where the pain is. Cover with a flannel bandage. It does no t blister the skin. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 Toothache: A Successful (if Drastic) Cure Toothache may be perfectly cured by placing a small piece of nutgall inside the hollow tooth. This entirely destroys the nerve of the tooth, which will never ac he again. The nutgall can be had from any chemist. Take it out of the tooth and replace it after one hour; or, one of the simplest cures for toothache is one te aspoonful of ground ginger and one of Epsom salts, taken in a teacupful of hot w ater. Golden Recipes: Knowledge it Power, n.d. {19th century Charm-Cures for Toothache This common ailment, which produces so much discomfort, unfortunately rarely mee ts with a degree of sympathy proportionate to the agony it occasions, but has ne vertheless been honoured with an extensive folk-lore; and the quaint remedies th at superstitious fancy has suggested for its cure would occupy a small volume if treated with anything like fulness. Selecting some of the best known, we may me ntion one which, in point of efficacy, is considered by many as unsurpassed, nam ely, a tooth taken from the mouth of a corpse, and worn round the neck as an amu let. Occasionally a double-nut is carried in the pocket for the same purpose. There is a belief, too, that the possession of a Bible or a Prayer Book, with th e following legend written in it, is an effectual charm: - All glory, all glory, all glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was walking in the Garden of Gethsemane, He saw Peter w eeping. He called unto him, and said, "Peter, why weepest thou?" Peter answered and said, "Lord, I am grievously tormented with pain-the pain of my tooth." Our Lord answered and said, "If thou wilt believe in Me, and My words abide with the e, thou shalt never feel any more pain in thy tooth." Peter said, "Lord, I belie ve; help Thou mine unbelief." In the name, &c., God grant M.N. ease from the pai n in his tooth.' Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 ---The Throat For a Severe Sore Throat (An Old Australian Cure) To cure the worst sore throat, take a piece of bacon fat (raw) of stout cotton round it. Hold the cotton and swallow the fat. y the thread and swallow it again. Do this half a dozen times. cashmere stocking that has been worn for a week, sprinkle the tus, place that part against the throat, wrap the remainder of nd the neck, pin securely, and go to bed. and tie a length Pull up the fat b Then take a black sole with eucalyp the stocking arou

Next day you will have forgotten there was ever such a thing as a sore throat. ' Another Grandma' of Dudinin (WA), in a letter to the Editor. [Insert pic p166] To Relieve a Sore Throat Sore throat can be speedily relieved by using hot strong tea as a gargle. Mrs Th eo. P. Winning, The (Australian) Household Manual, c. 1899 To Remove a Hair or Fish-bone in the Throat (Old English)

If a hair or fish-bone stick in the throat, immediately swallow the yolk of a ra w egg; it is a very good thing. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753. ---Thumb-Sucking One of the long-enduring myths of folk medicine is the belief that thumb. suckin g is inimical to the child's health and personality development. The myth receiv ed a strong impetus in the late 19th century from that Savonarola of the nursery , that scourge of indulgent parents, Dr Heinrich Hoffman, whose tale of the dire fate of little Suck-a-Thumb brought terror to many children and not a little wo rry to their mothers and fathers: One day, Mamma said: 'Conrad dear, I must go out and leave you here. But mind now, Conrad, what I say, Don't suck your thumb while I'm away. The great tall tailor always comes To little boys that suck their thumbs; And ere they dream what he's about, He takes his great sharp scissors out And cuts their thumbs clean off-and then, You know, they never grow again!' Mamma had scarcely turned her back, T he thumb was in, alack ! alack ! The door flew open, in he ran, The great, long, red-legged scissor-man. Oh, children, see! the tailor's come And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb. Snip! snap! snip! the scissors go; And Conrad cries out-'Oh! ooh! oh!' Snip! snap! snip! they go so fast, That both his thumbs are off at last. Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands, And looks quite sad, and shows his hands; 'Ah!' said Mamma, 'I knew he'd come To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb.' Fortunately, near the turn of the century Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Verses, an d the remarkable advances in psychological study, began to laugh Dr Hoffman out of existence. But at least the myth of the terrible dangers of thumb-sucking sur vived. However, as Bergen Evans has pointed out, most child psychologists nowada ys are confident that the practice is 'as normal as breathing', and that 'attemp ts to stop it may well lead to maloccluded personalities'. In many old-time Australian homes the thumb-sucking and nail-biting of young chi ldren were thwarted, at least temporarily, by the application of a paste made fr om the juice of the bitter aloe plant to the infant fingers. An Australian Cure for Thumb-Sucking I have one hint to give-about the wee babe that sucks its thumb. I heard a baby health centre sister over the air advise a mother to wrap paper (brown or simila r) round baby's arm from above the elbow to the wrist fairly firmly. The inconve nience of bending the arm soon pulls babe up, and gradually helps to overcome th e habit. 'Admirer'. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1931

---Thrush Old Superstitions Concerning Thrush There is a popular notion that a person must have this complaint once in his lif e, either at his birth or death. Norfolk nurses prefer to see it in babies, on t he plea that it is healthy, (*) and makes them feed more freely; but if it appea rs in a sick adult person he is generally given over as past recovery. Some of t he remedies for this disease are curious, as, for instance, a Cornish one, which recommends the child to be taken fasting on three consecutive mornings, 'to hav e its mouth blown into' by a posthumous child. In Devonshire the parent is advis ed to take three rushes from any running stream, and to pass them separately thr ough the mouth of the infant. Afterwards the rushes should be thrown into the st ream again, and as the current bears them away, so will the thrush, it is said, depart from the child. Should this prove ineffectual, the parent is recommended to capture the nearest duck that can be found, and to place its beak, wide open, within the mouth of the sufferer. As the child inhales the cold breath of the d uck, the disease, we are told, will gradually disappear. A further charm consist s in reading the eighth Psalm over the child's head three times every day on thr ee days in the week for three successive weeks. Rev. T.F. Thiselton Dyer, Domest ic Folk-Lore, c. 1881 [*] Bergen Evans, in his entertaining book, The Spoor of Spooks (1955) has a rel evant comment: Certain diseases are still regarded as 'children's diseases', and it is widely f elt that 'they might as well have them and get it over with'. Our stout-hearted parents used sometimes to put a healthy child in bed with a sick one because 'it would get it anyway', and patients are easier to handle in job lots. Many parents hold to the old theory, though few today would definitely court inf ection. They argue, for instance, that mumps is more severe in an adult and that , therefore, it is better to have it while you are young. It is best, of course, not to have it at all, and the same goes for measles and the lot. ---Tobacco The virtues of tobacco don't shine so brightly in these days as they did in the 17th century. Many of us see menace in the eyes of My Lady Nicotine. Not that everyone in 17th century England was hell-bent on praise for the weed. 'Herein is not only a great vanity,' wrote King James I, 'but a great contempt o f God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God , should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.' (A Counterblast to Toba cco.) The Virtues of Tobacco: It helpeth digestion, Of that there's no question, The gout, and the toothache it easeth: Be it early, or late, 'Tis never out of date,

He may safely take it that pleaseth. Tobacco prevents Infection by scents, That hurt the brain, and are heady; An antidote is, Before you're amisse, As well as an after remedy. The cold it doth heat, Cools them that do sweat, And them that are fat maketh lean: The hungry doth feed, And. if there be need, Spent spirits restoreth again. Tobacco infused, May safely be used, For purging, and killing of lice: Not so much as the ashes, But heals cuts and slashes, And that out of hand, in a trice. (An anonymous 17th century English rhyme) Another Rhyme on the Same: Much meat doth glutony procure To feed men fat as swine; But he's a frugal man indeed Who on a leaf can dine! He needs no napkin for his hands His finger's ends to wipe; That hath his kitchen in a box, His roast meat in a pipe! (Anon., 1654, quoted in G. H. Haydon, Five Years Experience in Australia Felix, 1846) [Insert pic p172] Bush Uses of Tobacco 'Pipe-juice is the stuff if you're bit be a snake. Rub it well in, an' y' don't need no doctor. And, reckerlect, if the kids get earache, just blow a few puffs of y're pipe inta the eat hole.' Quoted by 'Bull-ant Bill' in the Bulletin, Sydn ey August 26, 1959. ---Tonics An Excellent Snail Water (Old English) Take a comfry (an English ditch-plant with bell-like flowers) and succory-roots [chicory], of each four ounces, the leaves of harts-tongue [a species of fern], plantain, ground-ivy, red nettle, yarrow, brooklime [water pimpernel, water-cres ses, dandelion, and agrimony {a field and hedge herb, of each two large handfuls ; gather these herbs in dry weather, and do not wash them, but wipe them clean w

ith a cloth; then take five hundred of snails, cleansed from their shells, but n ot scoured, and of whites of eggs beaten up to a water, a pint, four nutmegs gro ssly beaten, the yellow rind of one lemon and one orange; bruise all the roots a nd herbs, and put them together with the other ingredients in a gallon of new mi lk and a pint of canary [a light, sweet wine]; let them stand close covered fort y eight hours, and then distil them in a common still with a gentle fire; this q uantity will fill your still twice; it will keep good a year, and is best when m ade spring or fall, but it is the best when new; you must not cork up the bottle s in three months, but cover them with paper; it is immediately fit to use; and when you use it take a quarter of a pint of this water, and put to it as much mi lk warm from the cow, and drink it in the morning, and at four o'clock in the af ternoon, and fast two hours after it; to take crabs-eyes [morbid particles, larg ely carbonate of lime, taken from the bodies of crayfish] with it, as much as wi ll lie on a sixpence, mightily assists to sweeten the blood. When you drink this water, be very regular in your diet, and eat nothing salt or sour. E. Smith, Th e Compleat Housewife, 1753. A Recipe for Lime-water A useful preparation. Place a pound of unslaked lime in a earthen vessel; pour o n it, a little at a time, a pint and a half of water: do it slowly, and stir it all the time. In half a dozen hours, or less, the lime will have settled to the bottom; then carefully pour off the water. Put it in a well corked bottle, and p lace in a dark place. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 For the Best of Health A Friend to Everyone. -- Lime Water, so invaluable for all ages, is simply made from two ounces of builders' common unslaked lime to each quart of boiling water . On this, after standing all night, a scum will appear, which throw off, and de cant the clear water for use. One tablespoonful to be taken in half a teacup of milk in a morning-ill or well-according to desire, which adds to health-and the best of health-even from an infant to an adult, or extreme age. Try it. Golden R ecipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] A Good Laxative Half lb. prunes, boil till quite soft, and remove stones, 1/2 lb. dried figs, 1/ 2 lb. common dark treacle; boil all well together, then add sixpence worth of se nna powder. Put in jars. Dose - One dessertspoonful, taken fasting. (Recommended to sufferers from constipation.) Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Househo ld Manual, c. 1899 The Virtues of Fruits in Season Fruit acts as a tonic, particularly apples and oranges. Apples are beneficial fo r a sluggish liver. Oranges are an aperient. Strawberries are good for anaemic p eople. Pineapples are valuable; they aid the digestion of meat and albuminous fo ods. P.W.M.U. Cookery Book of Victoria, 1904 'A Gentle Aperient' Cream of Tartar.-Half an ounce is a gentle aperient; by dissolving this quantity in a quart of boiling water, then sweetening it, and adding lemon peel to give it a flavour, a pleasant drink is made for hot climates. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 A Useful Tonic and Febrifuge Sulphate of Quinine.-This valuable medicine is very efficient in cases of ague,

and as a tonic and febrifuge in indigestion, hysterics, epilepsy, acute rheumati sm, typhus-fever, jail fever [typhus-fever of a particularly virulent kind], put rid sore throat, scarlet-fever, small-pox, &c. The dose is from one to three gra ins twice or thrice a day or oftener, made into a pill with extract of gentian, or combined with cinnamon water, and syrup and tincture of orange-peel. The Emig rant's Guide to Australia, 1853 A Wonderful Old English Elixir: Lily of the Valley Water Take the flowers of lily of the valley, distil them in sack (white wine or dry s herry), and drink a spoonful or two as there is occasion; it restores speech to those who have the dumb palsy or apoplexy, it is good against the gout, it comfo rts the heart, and strengthens the memory; it helps the inflammation of the eyes , being dropt into them. Take the flowers, put them into a glass stopt, and set it into a hill of ants for a month; then take it out, and you will find a liquor that comes from the flowers, which keep in a phial; it easeth the pains of the gout, the place affected being anointed therewith. E. Smith, The Compleat Housew ife, 1753 A Valuable Remedy for Kidney Complaint Equal parts barley and lime water. Mix together and drink 1 cupful three times a day. P.M.W.U. Cookery Book of Victoria, 1904. ---Urine Country folk in Britain and Australia once believed-and some still do that the a cid in ones urine effectively disposed of sundry excrescences such as warts, chi lblains and corns. Urine for Corns I can give you a remedy (or, I should say, 'so-called remedy') for corns, which, I might state, I never tried myself, though I knew plenty of old-timers who use d it-they have passed on many years ago. You soaked the corn in urine, and then made a paste of soap and sugar which was applied to the corn every morning for a week. The corn, unless very stubborn, would then lift out. For a bunion, you used an arum lily leaf (the old white-trumpet kind of lily), a nd bound it tightly around the affected foot with a bandage, which was left on f or a week. (I often wondered how you would effect cures if you had a corn and bu nion on the foot at the same time!) Mrs L. P. of Dookie (V), in a letter to the Editor. ---Vaccination Settlers' Prejudice Early colonists had a strong prejudice against their children being vaccinated w hen an epidemic [of small-pox] was raging at Cape of Good Hope. Keith Macarthur Brown, Medical Practice in Old Parramatta, 1937. ---Veterinary Preparations and Humans

In Australian newspapers of the 1850s one might read advertisements like this: ~~ A Favourite With All Stock Raisers Cob's Healing Oil It Cures Rheumatism, Lumbago, Lame Back, Neuralgia, Diphtheria, Coughs, Colds, Croup, Pil es, Burns, Asthma, Chillblains, Corns, Toothache, Earache, Headache, Bruises and Wounds of every description on Man or Beast. For sale by Chemists and Medicine Dealers, 1s 3d. ~~ The use of veterinary preparations for human ailments was extremely common, espe cially in outback Australia, during the 19th century, and even later. A form of copper sulphate called bluestone, Venice turpentine, kerosene-these and others w ere administered to men, women, and especially children for a variety of complai nts when other remedies were lacking. Most people whom I've spoken to or corresponded with on this subject, who have b een 'treated' with such preparations, have claimed that they suffered no harm an d probably received some benefit. But a letter which appeared in Australasian Po rt (January 25, 1962), written by C.H.E. of Ipswich (Q), illustrates the dangers that may arise from the unqualified use of these 'specifics': People ... enjoin us to remember our ancestors. I remember them. In fact, I knew a few of them and grew up with their kids. They were hardy and strong, but don' t confuse hardiness with foolhardiness. I did, and paid for it, being blind twice (the result of flies), and 'treated' f or cattle blight by one of the afore-mentioned ancestors. I learned later that this 'specific' was powdered bluestone. Weeks of proper medical treatment followed before I saw daylight again. Sitting it out in the dark with only my thoughts for company most of the time I develope d a strong aversion to bush remedies. Some time later, I met three middle-aged brothers, who, as boys, had undergone a similar 'cure' at the hands of their father. They had only three good eyes betw een them! ---Warts 'Paint me, warts and all,' we hear (in folk memory) Oliver Cromwell instructing Sir Peter Lely. He said nothing of the sort. He was much more uncompromising. 'R emark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and every thing as you see me,' sai d the dictator to the painter, 'otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.' ( *) The lore of warts is so vast and universal that books have been devoted to th e subject and still it isn't exhausted. The fascination which warts exert lies p artly in their mysterious comings and goings, suggesting that supernatural force s are at work; and partly in the remarkable measures that evolved over the centu ries to deal with them. One of the strangest, certainly, is to be found in Topse

l's History of Four footed Beasts and Serpents (1607): 'Reckon how many warts yo u have, and take so many ants, and bind them up in a thin cloth with a snail, an d bring all to ashes, and mingle them with vinegar. Take off the head of a small ant, and bruise the body between your fingers, and anoint with it any imposthum ated tumour, and it will presently sink down.' [*] Given in J. M. and M. J. Cohen, The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, 1960. Ed. An Old Superstition Revived Here is an old cure for warts that may be of interest to you. I had warts all ov er my hands. I worked in the meat industry, and a friend of mine told me to rub a piece of beef all over my hands and then bury the meat, the idea being that wh en it decayed the warts would disappear. I did this; and within two months I had no warts. 'Young Jacob' of Korumburra (V), in a letter to the Editor Old Charm Cures for Warts In ng ce be d. my childhood, it was a common practice to rub warts every morning with 'fasti spittle', until they disappeared. (*)Another supposed cure was to steal a pie of meat, rub it vigorously on the wart, then bury the meat. All of this must done secretly. By the time the meat had rotted the wart would have disappeare Mrs A.V.T. of Carnegie (V), in a letter to the Editor like blood, was agent of magic and swellings a treated by havi on a piece of w

[*] The Radfords' Encyclopaedia of Superstitions says: 'Spittle, once thought to be the centre of soul-power, therefore a potent and protection . Fasting spittle is sometimes used to cure warts nd to disperse birthmarks . . . Ringworm and skin blemishes are ng spittle laid upon them. A cure for obstinate corns it to spit ashing soda and lay it on the corn.' Ed. [Insert pic p182] Popular Lore concerning Warts

As in the case of so many other charms, most of those used also for this complai nt are of the nature of a sacrifice, the warts being transferred to a substitute . Thus, the person is recommended to count his warts, to wrap in a piece of pape r a pebble for each, and then to throw the parcel away, in the hope that its unf ortunate finder will get them. Another remedy is to open the warts to the quick, and to rub them with the juice of a sour apple, which should afterwards be buri ed, and as it decomposes the warts will die away. Some rub the wart with eels' b lood, and others believe in the efficacy of the ashen tree. After picking each w art with a pin, they stick it into the bark, and repeat this rhyme: 'Ashen tree, ashen tree, Pray buy these warts of me.' An Irish servant's formula is to pass his hand over the warts, making the sign o f the cross, at the same time bidding them, in God's name, depart and trouble hi m no more. He then gives someone a slip of paper, on which is written 'Jesus Chr ist, that died upon the cross, put my warts away', to drop by the roadside. It i s thought that as it perishes, so, too, will the warts vanish. Another plan is t o steal a piece of raw meat, rub the warts with it, and throw it away, a charm m entioned by Southey in The Doctor'. Other remedies are the juice of ants, spider s' webs, pigs' blood, while tying a horse hair round each wart is considered eff icacious. Another method is to blow on the warts nine times when the moon is ful l; and in some places boys take a new pin, cross the warts with it nine times, a nd cast it over the left shoulder. Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Domestic Folk-Lore

, c. 1881 Blacksmith's Pot I have been told that a satisfactory cure for warts, practised by old-time settl ers, was to plunge the affected parts into the water which blacksmiths used to c ool their irons. C.E.H. of Nar Nar Goon (V), in a letter to the Editor Wart Recipes Cut a raw potato, and rub the warts with it very frequently. Mrs Theo. P. Winning, The [Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 Rub them with oil of cinnamon night and morning. It is painless. Ibid A Wheat Charm Cure for Warts My sister had a huge, horrible wart on the palm of her hand-nothing worked to re move it. Mum jokingly told her of an old cure; and this my sister tried. You tak e a handful of wheat and bury it on the night of the full moon. My sister was te n years old at the time, As it was a cold night she threw the wheat down the gul ly-trap. But apparently the magic was there, too, or else she really believed it : anyway, two days later that wart was gone. Mum took one or two days more to re cover from the shock. Mrs L.B. of Belmont (V), in a letter to the Editor Wart Remedies As a child growing up in the country I saw some strange customs with regard to t he removal of warts. Among them was the belief that if you rubbed raw bacon, or the inside of a broad bean, on the wart it would go away. The 'cure' only worked , however, if you buried the bacon or the bean immediately afterwards. E.S. of H ervey Bay (Q), in a letter to the Editor A 'Safe, Sure and Quick Remedy' for Warts 'Ex-Nurse' said:-There is one little hint my sister would like to send to any re ader who might be troubled with warts: that is, to treat them with strong soluti on of Condy's fluid. This is a safe, sure and quick remedy, as she herself has p roved after many weeks of trying innumerable remedies, which had no effect whate ver. She had close on a hundred warts on her hands and arms, coming out in crops . The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 Another for the Same 'Helper,' Smythesdale (V), suggested rubbing warts daily with castor oil. It rem oves warts or moles in time. Ibid ---Watercress For the Early Stages of Consumption From a 'hand-written recipe book of my grandmother, compiled while she and her f amily were living at Queenscliff (V), ninety to one hundred years ago', an East Coburg (V) correspondent has copied this notation: 'Free use of Watercress will cure consumption in its earlier stages'. A Superior Smoke

Dried water-cress is superior to tobacco for smoking. Golden Recipes: Knowledge is Power, n.d. [19th century] ---Whooping-cough 'Whooping-cough, which was formerly often regarded as merely an inconvenience to the sufferer and an annoyance to others,' wrote Bergen Evans in The Spoor of Sp ooks, 'its now known to cause more deaths than infantile paralysis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles all put together.' How seriously this ailment was reg arded, popularly, in former times in Australia I do not know. But I should imagi ne that there was a great dread of it, especially in rural areas, where it took a heavy toll among children and the Aboriginal population. A small booklet, Walg ett's Early History, by Bill Weate, refers to .the fact that in 1878 'many child ren died from whooping-cough' at Walgett, in western New South Wales. And Walget t, at that time, was a thinly-populated part of frontier Australia. For a Chin-cough, or Whooping-cough (Old English) Take a spoonful of woodlice, bruise them, mix them with breast-milk, and take th em three or four mornings according as you find benefit. It will cure; but some must take it longer than others. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Antimonial Wine This is a safe and good emetic. A tablespoonful is a dose . . . It is useful for children having whooping-cough, as it relieves them from the suffocating violen ce of the cough. Give plenty of warm drink to work it off. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 Some Old Charms against Whooping-cough Thiselton Dyer noted: 'This common enemy of childhood has, from time immemorial, afforded ample opportunity to the superstitiously-inclined to devise sundry cha rms for its cure, of which the following are a few: Passing the patient three ti mes under the belly and three times over the back of a donkey; or let the parent of the afflicted child catch a spider, and hold it over the head of the child, repeating three times: "Spider, as you waste away, Whooping-cough no longer stay." The spider must then be hung up in a bag over the mantelpiece, and when it has d ried up the cough will have disappeared. There is a notion in Cheshire that this complaint can be cured by holding a toad or frog for a few moments with its hea d within the child's mouth, whereas in Norfolk the patient is advised either to drink some milk which a ferret has lapped or to allow himself to be dragged thre e times round a gooseberry bush or bramble, and then three times again after thr ee days' interval. In Sussex the excrescence often found on the briar-rose, and known as "Robin Redbreast's Cushion", is worn as an amulet; and in Suffolk, if s everal children in a family are taken ill, some of the hair of the oldest child is cut into small pieces, put into some milk, and the mixture given to its broth ers and sisters to drink. Some, again, procure hair from the dark cross on the b ack of a donkey, and having placed it in a bag, hang it round the child's neck.' (*) ~~ [*] 'Lest anyone think that folk practices such as these have long since faded a

way because of the advance of medical science, the following facts given by Berg en Evans in The Spoor of Spooks (1955) may prove enlightening: The Manchester Guardian, August 24, 1950, p. 14, says that at St Albans 'a consp icuous number of children are still marched round and round the gasworks by anxi ous parents as a cure for whooping cough'. The Guardian and the Gas Board are of the opinion that this strange practice, known elsewhere in England, 'derives, p resumably, from a mistaken interpretation of the doctor's advice about a change of air.' The Guardian lists other popular cures, many of which are plainly based on sympathetic magic. A fish is put into a child's mouth and then thrown into a river, where it 'gives' the whooping cough to other fish. Or a piece of the chi ld's hair is mixed with meat and the meat fed to a dog. ~~ An Old Australian Recipe for Whooping-cough Boil a little garlic (white bulb part) until soft, but not smashed up. Mash up w ith a fork and mix with lard to form a stiff paste, and rub on soles of feet at night. Mrs Z.A., Bungana, via Scottsdale, Tas. Quoted in The Leader Spare Corner Book, 1930 Another for the Same Take a large Whitestone turnip raw and cut in slices as thin as possible, lay on a large plate and sprinkle freely with sugar, allow to stand until the juice fl ows and sugar dissolves. Dose.-Give for baby one small teaspoonful every few hours or until relieved; for older ones a larger dose in proportion. 'Ivy. Ibid ---Worms To Kill Wormes in Children To kill wormes in children and hath been well approved to be effectual take a he ad of garlicke lay it in the leaves of wormwood then lap it in brown paper as yo u do a warden when you think it soft rosted take it out of the fire and spread u pon a cloathe and in the morning take it off and in the next night apply a fresh one in the same manner. Robt. Bulkeley His Book, 1641, quoted in Dorothy Jacob, Cures and Curses, 1967 An 18th Century Description of the Signs and Symptoms of Worms It is to be noted, that there are divers sorts of worms that breed in the body, and take up their residence therein, either in the stomach or bowels, and someti mes near the sphincter ani, or fundament, and often knit themselves together, an d appear like a bag of worms, and are supposed to be bred from the ova or eggs o f those animals swallowed down with the food, and encouraged and fed by viscidit ies in the passages; and according as they reside, or have placed themselves in the body, the symptoms and complaints which such people make, are different both in kind and degree; in some to occasion looseneses, in others costiveness, or f requent desires to go to stool, but cannot; in some to cause a fetid or stinking breath, which is a shrewd sign of worms, as is also a hard or inflamed belly, e specially in children, with a voracious appetite, and almost continual thirst, f everishness by fits, and intermitting pulse, and glowing cheeks; in some, a heav iness or pain in the head, startings in sleep, with frightful terrifying dreams; in some, a sleepiness representing a lethargy; in others, a nausea, or loathing

of food, with or without motion to vomit, a pain and weight with a gnawing in t he stomach, gripings and rumblings in the bowels, like the cholic; in children, a dry cough, and sometimes screaming fits and convulsions, with white lips, and white urine; and in both old and young a weakened or lost appetite, giddiness in the head, paleness of countenance, with faintings and cold sweats of a sudden, indigestions, abatement of the strength, and falling away of flesh, as if droppi ng into a consumption; with many other symptoms, but these are the chief, which ever more or less, some or other of them always affect where worms are the cause . .. . E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 An Old English Recipe To Know if a Child has Worms or Not Take a piece of white leather, prick it full of holes with your knife, rub it wi th wormwood, spread honey on it, and strew the powder of succotrine aloes on it; lay it on the child's navel when it goes to bed; and if it has worms, the plais ter will stick fast; and if it has not, it will fall off. E. Smith, The Compleat Housewife, 1753 Senna Tea Senna Leaves.-Pour on half an ounce of these leaves half a pint of boiling water ; when cold, strain it; and this is senna-tea. Warm it, and add milk and sugar, or put prunes or figs in the hot infusion. A wine-glassful is a dose. When given for worms, it should be taken in the morning, fasting. The Emigrant's Guide to Australia, 1853 ---Youth (Perpetual) We'll allow the last word to a woman, and a very great one at that. And if she c ouldn't keep a secret-well, as folklore teaches us, this is the great weakness o f all women. Sarah Bernhardt's Secret for her Perpetual Youth [Sarah Bernhardt, 'La Grande Sarah', achieved the zenith of her career as one of the world's greatest actresses, in the years between 1899 and 1913.] Sarah Bernhardt's Bath.-Madame Bernhardt says the secret of her perpetual youth is an 'eau sedative', with which she is bathed when very fatigued. After being s ponged with it she is dried with a very soft towel, and feels so much refreshed that she is able to fall asleep at once, even after the most exacting of perform ances. The Recipe: 2 ozs. spirits of ammonia, 2 ozs. of spirits of camphor, 12 c ups of sea salt, 2 cups of alcohol; put all in a quart bottle, and fill with boi ling water. Shake well before using. It leaves the skin smooth and soft, and ren ders the flesh firm. It is also a defence against wrinkles. Mrs Theo. P. Winning , The (Australian] Household Manual, c. 1899 ---------------------------End.